General motion of a rigid body

Abstract

The tools that allow the description of the motion of the rigid body are recalled. We used both Euler's angles Euler angles and Euler's parameters Euler parameters (normalized quaternions) to describe the orientations of the body. Precession of the rigid body and air resistanceair resistance and the dissipation of the energy at successive collisions collision are discussed. © 2009 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.