Subsumption architecture

An AI concept originating from behavioral robotics. Made by Rodney Brooks in the late 1980'ies.

A way of decomposing one complex behaviour into many "simple" layers of incresing more abstract behaviours. Each layer can overrule (subsume) the decision of the overlaying layer, e.g. the lowest obstacle-avoidiance layer could choose to overrule the descicion to move forward by the eat-food layer.