Zermelo Navigation Problems on Surfaces of Revolution and Geometric Optimal Control

Submitted and Accepted at ESAIM:COCVInternational audienceIn this article, the historical study from Carathéodory-Zermelo about computing the quickest nautical path is generalized to Zermelo navigation problems on surfaces of revolution, in the frame of geometric optimal control. Using the Maximum Principle, we present two methods dedicated to analyzing the geodesic flow and to compute the conjugate and cut loci. We apply these calculations to investigate case studies related to applications in hydrodynamics, space mechanics and geometry