Introduction

When I was taking the Stanford AI class, one of the few topics I thought was poorly covered was that of particle filters. They say that the best way to learn something is to teach it, so this article is my attempt at understanding what particle filters are, and how they work. It concludes with a demo that looks like this:

(Press the arrow keys to move the robot; the particles will show you where he thinks he is located. Note that sometimes the arrow keys will not move the robot where you intend; this is part of the problem that we're using particle filters to solve).