====== Map-Based Localization ======

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This project was implementing Markov Chain Monte-Carlo Localization (MCL) for a field robot.  MCL is a particle-filter approach.  At that time (2001), MCL had only been used on indoor robots with low-resolution sensors (such as ultrasound.)  {{mcl2.pdf | This paper}} describes my highly efficient implementation based on road detection, intended to be deployed on the General Dynamics XUV.  I made some changes to the published algorithms to improve performance in this application, and also added a new (and highly effective) procedure to validate any apparent position fix based on reprocessing recent measurement according to the position hypothesis.  I later did successful tests on NavLab11 using an actual road sensor, and also using elevation map data.  Elevation can be sensed using a barometric altimeter, though I used GPS for testing.