%0 Thesis %D 2014 %T The curvature of optimal control problems with applications to sub-Riemannian geometry %A Luca Rizzi %K Sub-Riemannian geometry %X Optimal control theory is an extension of the calculus of variations, and deals with the optimal behaviour of a system under a very general class of constraints. This field has been pioneered by the group of mathematicians led by Lev Pontryagin in the second half of the 50s and nowadays has countless applications to the real worlds (robotics, trains, aerospace, models for human behaviour, human vision, image reconstruction, quantum control, motion of self-propulsed micro-organism). In this thesis we introduce a novel definition of curvature for an optimal control problem. In particular it works for any sub-Riemannian and sub-Finsler structure. Related problems, such as comparison theorems for sub-Riemannian manifolds, LQ optimal control problem and Popp's volume and are also investigated. %I SISSA %G en %U http://hdl.handle.net/1963/7321 %1 7367 %2 Mathematics %4 1 %# MAT/03 GEOMETRIA %$ Submitted by Luca Rizzi (lrizzi@sissa.it) on 2014-05-23T12:10:38Z No. of bitstreams: 1 main.pdf: 2357698 bytes, checksum: 7283fc7a064552ee4709b0dfccddf2b8 (MD5) %] Introduction 1) The curvature of optimal control problems 2) Comparison theorems for conjugate points in sub-Riemannian geometry 3) On conjugate times of LQ optimal control problems 4) A formula for Popp's volume in sub-Riemannian geometry