Motion, Unit Dual Quaternion and Motion Optimization

Abstract: We introduce motions as real six-dimensional vectors. A motion means a rotation and a translation. We define a motion operator which maps unit dual quaternions to motions, and a UDQ operator which maps motions to unit dual quaternions. By these operators, we present the formulation of motion optimization, which is actually a real unconstrained optimization formulation. Then we formulate two classical problems in robot research, i.e., the hand-eye calibration problem and the simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) problem as motion optimization problems. This opens a new way to solve these problems via real unconstrained optimization.