{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,10,13]],"date-time":"2026-10-13T17:07:00Z","timestamp":1791911220197,"version":"4.3.4"},"reference-count":52,"publisher":"Frontiers Media SA","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2023,11,2]],"date-time":"2023-11-02T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1698883200000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"DOI":"10.13039\/501100009318","name":"Helmholtz Association","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","award":["ZT-0033 KA-HSC-06 KA1-Co-02"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["ZT-0033 KA-HSC-06 KA1-Co-02"]}],"id":[{"id":"10.13039\/501100009318","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"publisher"}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":["frontiersin.org"],"crossmark-restriction":true},"short-container-title":["Front. Robot. AI"],"abstract":"<jats:p>The term \u201cworld model\u201d (WM) has surfaced several times in robotics, for instance, in the context of mobile manipulation, navigation and mapping, and deep reinforcement learning. Despite its frequent use, the term does not appear to have a concise definition that is consistently used across domains and research fields. In this review article, we bootstrap a terminology for WMs, describe important design dimensions found in robotic WMs, and use them to analyze the literature on WMs in robotics, which spans four decades. Throughout, we motivate the need for WMs by using principles from software engineering, including \u201cDesign for use,\u201d \u201cDo not repeat yourself,\u201d and \u201cLow coupling, high cohesion.\u201d Concrete design guidelines are proposed for the future development and implementation of WMs. Finally, we highlight similarities and differences between the use of the term \u201cworld model\u201d in robotic mobile manipulation and deep reinforcement learning.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3389\/frobt.2023.1253049","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2023,11,2]],"date-time":"2023-11-02T10:07:29Z","timestamp":1698919649000},"update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3389\/crossmark-policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":15,"title":["Robotic world models\u2014conceptualization, review, and engineering best practices"],"prefix":"10.3389","volume":"10","author":[{"given":"Ryo","family":"Sakagami","sequence":"first","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Florian S.","family":"Lay","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Andreas","family":"D\u00f6mel","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Martin J.","family":"Schuster","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Alin","family":"Albu-Sch\u00e4ffer","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Freek","family":"Stulp","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"1965","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2023,11,2]]},"reference":[{"key":"B1","volume-title":"\u201cNeBula: quest for robotic autonomy in challenging environments; TEAM CoSTAR at the DARPA subterranean challenge,\u201d","author":"Agha","year":"2021"},{"key":"B2","first-page":"293","article-title":"\u201cWorld model representations for mobile robots,\u201d","author":"Angelopoulou","year":"1992"},{"key":"B3","unstructured":"\u201cYann lecun on a vision to make ai systems learn and reason like animals and humans.\u201d2022"},{"key":"B4","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"1","DOI":"10.1145\/2501654.2501666","article-title":"\u201cA survey on reactive programming,\u201d","volume":"45","author":"Bainomugisha","year":"2013","journal-title":"ACM Comput. 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