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What does SE mean in robotics literature?

14

I've come across the abbreviation SE several times recently. I know it has to do with the pose of the robot, and the degrees of freedom. Most recently I found it on page 8 of this paper:

D. Kragic and H. I. Christensen, “Survey on visual servoing for manipulation,” Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), Stockholm, Sweden, Tech. Rep. ISRN KTH/NA/P-02/01-SE, CVAP259, 2002.

2 Answers

4

In that context, SE means "Special Euclidean" group, e.g. SE(3)* which is shorthand for "the special Euclidean group of rigid body displacements in three-dimensions".

*Planning Algorithms, Steven M LaValle 2012-04-20

3

It is a mathematical concept call the "Special Euclidean" group. Roughly, it is a combination of a rotation and translation. You'll also frequently see SO3, which is the special orthogonal group which means rotations.


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What does SE mean in robotics literature?

14

I've come across the abbreviation SE several times recently. I know it has to do with the pose of the robot, and the degrees of freedom. Most recently I found it on page 8 of this paper:

D. Kragic and H. I. Christensen, “Survey on visual servoing for manipulation,” Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), Stockholm, Sweden, Tech. Rep. ISRN KTH/NA/P-02/01-SE, CVAP259, 2002.


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9

In that context, SE means "Special Euclidean" group, e.g. SE(3)* which is shorthand for "the special Euclidean group of rigid body displacements in three-dimensions".

*Planning Algorithms, Steven M LaValle 2012-04-20

edit

Unfortunately, the links are not valid anymore, next time you can cite the paper by title, author, and maybe publisher/year. - Elod Apr 13, 2021 at 10:07

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