Some Properties of Clothoids

Abstract

In the present paper we prove some geometric properties of clothoids. A clothoid (or Cornu's spiral) is a plane curve whose curvature is a linear function of its length. In suitably chosen coordinates it is given by Frenel's integrals x(t) = R t 0 cos(B 2 =2)d , y(t) = R t 0 sin(B 2 =2)d . The clothoid appears in the problem to nd (a) shortest plane curve(s) joining two given points with given at them tangent angles and curvatures and with a bounded derivative of the curvature. It turns out that a regular (i.e. of the class C 3 ) point of a shortest curve is either a piece of a clothoid or a line segment. Some of the properties exposed in the paper are used in [5] to show that when the distance between the initial and nal points is sufficiently long, then, in general, shortest paths have infinitely many points of discontinuity of the curvature's derivative. Thus we are led to the problem to describe a procedure of constructing paths (called "suboptimal") longer no more than ...