Motor Parameterization

Abstract

In this paper, we consider several parameterizations of rigid transformations using motors in 3-D conformal geometric algebra. In particular, we present parameterizations based on the exponential, outer exponential, and Cayley maps of bivectors, as well as a map based on a first-order approximation of the exponential followed by orthogonal projection onto the group manifold. We relate these parameterizations to the matrix representations of rigid transformations in the 3-D special Euclidean group. Moreover, we present how these maps can be used to form retraction maps for use in manifold optimization; retractions being approximations of the exponential map that preserve the convergence properties of the optimization method while being less computationally expensive, and, for the presented maps, also easier to implement.