Motor Algebra for 3D Kinematics: The Case of the Hand-Eye Calibration

In this paper we apply the Clifford geometric algebra for solving problems of visually guided robotics. In particular, using the algebra of motors we model the 3D rigid motion transformation of points, lines and planes useful for computer vision and robotics. The effectiveness of the Clifford algebra representation is illustrated by the example of the hand-eye calibration. It is shown that the problem of the hand-eye calibration is equivalent to the estimation of motion of lines. The authors developed a new linear algorithm which estimates simultaneously translation and rotation as components of rigid motion.