perception

Definition

Turning raw sensor input into a usable description of the surroundings — detection, tracking, depth, segmentation, mapping. In robotics and driving stacks it is the first stage of the classic perception-planning-control decomposition, feeding a world model that later stages act on. The term stops short of deciding what to do; that belongs to planning, and papers that blur the boundary usually say so explicitly with terms like end-to-end.

Explainers using this term

• Paper Walkthrough — UrbanGround: Where MLLM Agents Break Down on a Real StreetUrbanGround: From Local Perception to Spatial Agency in a Real-Scale City