Creature design with the subsumption architecture

Abstract

The mobile robot group at MIT has been building robots using the subsumption architecture. This methodology decomposes a control system into a set of loosely coupled task achieving behaviors. In this paper we show how the constraints inherent in this approach naturally lead to a very simple computational design. To demonstrate its effectiveness we have built a new, small, fast robot based on these ideas. In this paper we discuss the performance of this robot and the theory behind its construction.