A system and method for real world autonomous vehicle perception simulation are disclosed. A particular embodiment includes: configuring a sensor noise modeling module to produce simulated sensor errors or noise data with a configured degree, extent, and timing of simulated sensor errors or noise based on a set of modifiable parameters; using the simulated sensor errors or noise data to generate simulated perception data by simulating errors related to constraints of one or more of a plurality of sensors, and by simulating noise in data provided by a sensor processing module corresponding to one or more of the plurality of sensors; and providing the simulated perception data to a motion planning system for the autonomous vehicle.