The most practical way in realizing top down robotics is to invent a game, which has to played by the AI. Simple games are taking place on a graph and can be visualized with petri nets.
What the robot can do inside the game is to execute actions. The game engine monitors the possible game states and determines the score for the robot.
If such a game was created it is possible to search for a path. The solver needs constraints and a goal as input and determines the action sequence to reach this goal.
sources :
Jensen, Kurt. Coloured Petri nets: basic concepts, analysis methods and practical use. Vol. 1. Springer Science & Business Media, 1997.
Jensen, Kurt. Coloured Petri nets: basic concepts, analysis methods and practical use. Vol. 1. Springer Science & Business Media, 1997.