Several architectural patterns have been proposed for the purpose of modeling autonomous robots. They do, however, lack support on anticipatory behavior. Anticipatory systems typically consist of hierarchical levels of units with similar structures but with different semantics. Close mapping between units of a reference system and components of software models put high demands on component independency, with respect to hierarchy. A concept of hierarchical modeling is proposed to provide support on anticipatory modeling and fills the gap on these matters. The concept has been developed in a context of industrial automation software and successful experiments have been based on a Java‐based framework.