Learning Smooth SE(3) Trajectories under Left-Invariant Riemannian Metrics

Abstract

Optimal trajectory generation for rigid-body motions on Lie groups can be formulated as a variational problem that minimizes energy functionals defined by Riemannian metrics. While closed-form solutions exist for special cases such as product metrics and rest-to-rest boundary conditions, solving the general problem with arbitrary boundary states and coupled rotational-translational metrics often requires computationally expensive numerical boundary value solvers. These limitations restrict the use of geometrically consistent trajectory generation in real-time robotic planning and control. This paper presents a learning-based framework for approximating higher-order smooth trajectories on SE(3) under general left-invariant Riemannian metrics. The method parameterizes body-twist trajectories using high-order polynomials and relies on a neural network to learn a subset of the polynomial coefficients and the trajectory duration. The remaining coefficients are analytically determined to enforce the boundary conditions. The training of the network is guided by losses derived from Euler-Lagrange optimality conditions, metric-weighted smoothness objectives, and feasibility constraints. The metric-conditioned framework enables generalization across diverse metric structures and motion conditions. Extensive numerical experiments demonstrate that the proposed approach generates smooth trajectories that closely approximate solutions from numerical optimization while achieving millisecond-level inference times. We demonstrate two practical applications of the proposed framework: real-time generation of diverse motion primitives with waypoint traversal, and refinement for quadrotor flight under dynamic conditions. These results suggest that learning-based motions with geometric structure can provide an efficient alternative to conventional optimization-based methods for trajectory generation on SE(3).