Generic Properties of Conjugate Points in Optimal Control Problems

The first part of the paper studies a class of optimal control problems in Bolza form, where the dynamics is linear w. r. t. ~the control function. A necessary condition is derived, for the optimality of a trajectory which starts at a conjugate point. The second part is concerned with a classical problem in the Calculus of Variations, with free terminal point. For a generic terminal cost ⁴ (Rⁿ), applying the previous necessary condition we show that the set of conjugate points is contained in the image of an (n-2) -dimensional manifold, and has locally bounded (n-2) -dimensional Hausdorff measure.