%0 Journal Article %J SIAM J. Control Optim. 44 (2005) 111-139 %D 2005 %T Time Optimal Synthesis for Left-Invariant Control Systems on SO(3) %A Ugo Boscain %A Yacine Chitour %X Consider the control system given by $\\\\dot x=x(f+ug)$, where $x\\\\in SO(3)$, $|u|\\\\leq 1$ and $f,g\\\\in so(3)$ define two perpendicular left-invariant vector fields normalized so that $\\\\|f\\\\|=\\\\cos(\\\\al)$ and $\\\\|g\\\\|=\\\\sin(\\\\al)$, $\\\\al\\\\in ]0,\\\\pi/4[$. In this paper, we provide an upper bound and a lower bound for $N(\\\\alpha)$, the maximum number of switchings for time-optimal trajectories. More precisely, we show that $N_S(\\\\al)\\\\leq N(\\\\al)\\\\leq N_S(\\\\al)+4$, where $N_S(\\\\al)$ is a suitable integer function of $\\\\al$ which for $\\\\al\\\\to 0$ is of order $\\\\pi/(4\\\\alpha).$ The result is obtained by studying the time optimal synthesis of a projected control problem on $R P^2$, where the projection is defined by an appropriate Hopf fibration. Finally, we study the projected control problem on the unit sphere $S^2$. It exhibits interesting features which will be partly rigorously derived and partially described by numerical simulations. %B SIAM J. Control Optim. 44 (2005) 111-139 %G en_US %U http://hdl.handle.net/1963/2258 %1 1989 %2 Mathematics %3 Functional Analysis and Applications %$ Submitted by Andrea Wehrenfennig (andreaw@sissa.it) on 2007-10-18T11:43:01Z\\nNo. of bitstreams: 1\\n0502483v1.pdf: 429552 bytes, checksum: 9f72f53d7031cdc7ccb2aca8b8ec16de (MD5) %R 10.1137/S0363012904441532