A survey of moving frames

Abstract. This article surveys the equivariant method of moving frames, along with a variety of applications to geometry, differential equations, computer vision, numerical analysis, the calculus of variations, and invariant curve flows. 1. Introduction. According to Akivis, [1], the method of moving frames originates in work of the Esto-nian mathematician Martin Bartels (1769–1836), a teacher of both Gauss and Lobachevsky. The field is most closely associated with Élie Cartan, [20], who forged earlier contributions by Darboux, Frenet, Serret, and Cotton into a powerful tool for analyzing the geometri