ME-UTE PAUC_V1.

0 2016

Experiment 1

MATLAB Basics Tutorial

MATLAB is an interactive program for numerical computation and data visualization; it is used
extensively by control engineers for analysis and design. There are many different toolboxes
available which extend the basic functions of MATLAB into different application areas; in these
tutorials, we will make extensive use of the Control Systems Toolbox. MATLAB is supported on
Unix, Macintosh, and Windows environments; a student version of MATLAB is available for
personal computers.

Key MATLAB commands used in this tutorial are: plot , polyval , roots , conv , deconv , inv

Contents

1.1 Vectors .................................................................................................................................................. 2

1.2. Functions ............................................................................................................................................... 2

1.3. Plotting .................................................................................................................................................. 3

1.4. Polynomials as Vectors ......................................................................................................................... 4

1.5. Polynomials Using the s Variable ......................................................................................................... 5

1.6. Matrices................................................................................................................................................ 6

1.7. Using m-files in MATLAB ................................................................................................................... 9

1.8. Getting Help in MATLAB .................................................................................................................. 10

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1.1. Vectors

Let's start off by creating something simple, like a vector. Enter each element of the vector
(separated by a space) between brackets, and set it equal to a variable. For example, to create the
vector a, enter the following into the MATLAB command window (you can Copy and Paste from
your browser into MATLAB to make it easy) and MATLAB should return the following:

a = [1 2 3 4 5 6 9 8 7]
a =
1 2 3 4 5 6 9 8 7

Let's say you want to create a vector with elements between 0 and 20 evenly spaced in increments
of two (this method is frequently used to create a time vector):

t = 0:2:20
t =
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20

Manipulating vectors is almost as easy as creating them. First, suppose you would like to add 2
to each of the elements in the vector a. The equation for that looks like:

b = a + 2
b =
3 4 5 6 7 8 11 10 9

Now suppose, you would like to add two vectors together. If the two vectors are the same length,
it is easy. Simply add the two as shown below:

c = a + b
c =
4 6 8 10 12 14 20 18 16

Subtraction of vectors of the same length works exactly the same way.

1.2. Functions

To make life easier, MATLAB includes many standard functions. Each function is a block of code
that accomplishes a specific task. MATLAB contains all of the standard functions such as sin,
cos, log, exp, sqrt, as well as many others. Commonly used constants such as pi, and i or j for
the square root of -1, are also incorporated into MATLAB.

sin(pi/4)
ans =

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0.7071

To determine the usage of any function, type help [function name] at the MATLAB command
window.

1.3. Plotting

It is also easy to create plots in MATLAB. Suppose you wanted to plot a sine wave as a function
of time. First, make a time vector (the semicolon after each statement tells MATLAB we don't
want to see all the values) and then compute the sin value at each time. The commands after the
plot function (title, xlabel, ylabel) will add annotations to the plot.

t = 0:0.25:7;
y = sin(t);

plot(t,y)
title('Sine Wave as a Function of Time')
xlabel('Time (secs)')
ylabel('Amplitude')

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The plot contains approximately one period of a sine wave. Basic plotting is very easy in
MATLAB, and the plot command has extensive add-on capabilities. I would recommend you
visit the plotting page to learn more about it.

1.4. Polynomials as Vectors

In MATLAB, a polynomial is represented by a vector. To create a polynomial in MATLAB,

simply enter each coefficient of the polynomial into the vector in descending order. For instance,
let's say you have the following polynomial:

(1)

To enter this into MATLAB, just enter it as a vector in the following manner:

x = [1 3 -15 -2 9]
x =
1 3 -15 -2 9

MATLAB can interpret a vector of length n+1 as an nth order polynomial. Thus, if your
polynomial is missing any coefficients, you must enter zeros in the appropriate place in the vector.
For example,

(2)

would be represented in MATLAB as:

y = [1 0 0 0 1]
y =
1 0 0 0 1

You can find the value of a polynomial using the polyval function. For example, to find the value
of the above polynomial at s = 2,

z = polyval([1 0 0 0 1],2)
z =
17

You can also extract the roots of a polynomial. This is useful when you have a high-order
polynomial such as

(3)

Finding the roots would be as easy as entering the following command:

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roots([1 3 -15 -2 9])

ans =
-5.5745
2.5836
-0.7951
0.7860

Let's say you want to multiply two polynomials together. The product of two polynomials is found
by taking the convolution of their coefficients. MATLAB's function conv will do this for you.

x = [1 2];
y = [1 4 8];
z = conv(x,y)
z =
1 6 16 16

Dividing two polynomials is just as easy. The deconv function will return the remainder as well
as the result. Let's divide z by y and see if we get x.

[xx, R] = deconv(z,y)
xx =
1 2
R =
0 0 0 0

As you can see, this is just the polynomial/vector x from before. If y had not gone into z evenly,
the remainder vector would have been something other than zero.

1.5. Polynomials Using the s Variable

Another way to represent a polynomial is to use the Laplace variable s within MATLAB. This
method is mainly used throughout these tutorials. Let's ignore the details of the Laplace domain
for now and just represent polynomials with the s variable. To define the variable, type the
following into the MATLAB command window:

s = tf('s')
s =

Continuous-time transfer function.

Recall the polynomial given above:

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(4)

To represent this in MATLAB, type the following into the MATLAB command window:

polynomial = s^4 + 3*s^3 - 15*s^2 - 2*s + 9

polynomial =

s^4 + 3 s^3 - 15 s^2 - 2 s + 9

Continuous-time transfer function.

Instead of using the roots function, we can use the zero function to find the roots of the
polynomial.

zero(polynomial)
ans =
-5.5745
2.5836
-0.7951
0.7860

As you can see, the result is the same as above using the roots command and the coefficients of
the polynomial.

You can also multiply two polynomials together using the s variable. Let's redefine x and y.

x = s + 2;
y = s^2 + 4*s + 8;
z = x * y
z =

s^3 + 6 s^2 + 16 s + 16

Continuous-time transfer function.

The resulting polynomial has the same coefficients as the resulting vector from the conv function
above.

1.6. Matrices

Entering matrices into MATLAB is the same as entering a vector, except each row of elements is
separated by a semicolon (;) or a return:

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B = [1 2 3 4; 5 6 7 8; 9 10 11 12]

B = [ 1 2 3 4
5 6 7 8
9 10 11 12 ]
B =
1 2 3 4
5 6 7 8
9 10 11 12
B =
1 2 3 4
5 6 7 8
9 10 11 12

Matrices in MATLAB can be manipulated in many ways. For one, you can find the transpose of
a matrix using the apostrophe key:

C = B'
C =
1 5 9
2 6 10
3 7 11
4 8 12

It should be noted that if C has been complex, the apostrophe would have actually given the
complex conjugate transpose. To get the transpose in this case, use .' (the two commands are the
same if the matrix is not complex).

Now you can multiply the two matrices B and C together. Remember that order matters when
multiplying matrices.

D = B * C

D = C * B
D =
30 70 110
70 174 278
110 278 446
D =
107 122 137 152
122 140 158 176
137 158 179 200
152 176 200 224

Another option for matrix manipulation is that you can multiply the corresponding elements of
two matrices using the .* operator (the matrices must be the same size to do this).

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E = [1 2; 3 4]
F = [2 3; 4 5]
G = E .* F
E =
1 2
3 4
F =
2 3
4 5
G =
2 6
12 20

If you have a square matrix, like E, you can also multiply it by itself as many times as you like by
raising it to a given power.

E^3
ans =
37 54
81 118

If you wanted to cube each element in the matrix, just use the element-by-element cubing.

E.^3
ans =
1 8
27 64

You can also find the inverse of a matrix:

X = inv(E)
X =
-2.0000 1.0000
1.5000 -0.5000

or its eigenvalues:

eig(E)
ans =
-0.3723
5.3723

There is even a function to find the coefficients of the characteristic polynomial of a matrix. The
poly function creates a vector that includes the coefficients of the characteristic polynomial.

p = poly(E)
p =

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1.0000 -5.0000 -2.0000

Remember that the eigenvalues of a matrix are the same as the roots of its characteristic
polynomial:

roots(p)
ans =
5.3723
-0.3723

1.7. Using m-files in MATLAB

There are slightly different things you need to know for each platform.

Macintosh

 There is a built-in editor for m-files; choose New M-file from the File menu. You can
also use any other editor you like (but be sure to save the files in text format and load them
when you start MATLAB).

Windows

 Running MATLAB from Windows is very similar to running it on a Macintosh. However,

you need to know that your m-file will be saved in the clipboard. Therefore, you must
make sure that it is saved as filename.m.

You can either type commands directly into MATLAB, or put all of the commands that you will
need together in a m-file, and just run the file. If you put all of your m-files in the same directory
that you run MATLAB from, then MATLAB will always find them.

What is an m-file?

An m-file, or script file, is a simple text file where you can place MATLAB commands. When the
file is run, MATLAB reads the commands and executes them exactly as it would if you had typed
each command sequentially at the MATLAB prompt. All m-file names must end with the
extension '.m' (e.g. test.m). If you create a new m-file with the same name as an existing m-file,
MATLAB will choose the one which appears first in the path order (type help path in the
command window for more information). To make life easier, choose a name for your m-file which
doesn't already exist. To see if a filename.m already exists, type help filename at the MATLAB
prompt.

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Why use m-files?

For simple problems, entering your requests at the MATLAB prompt is fast and efficient.
However, as the number of commands increases or trial and error is done by changing certain
variables or values, typing the commands over and over at the MATLAB prompt becomes tedious.
M-files will be helpful and almost necessary in these cases.

How to create, save or open an m-file?

If you are using PC or Mac:

To create an m-file, choose New from the File menu and select Script. This procedure brings up
a text editor window in which you can enter MATLAB commands.

To save the m-file, simply go to the File menu and choose Save (remember to save it with the '.m'
extension). To open an existing m-file, go to the File menu and choose Open.

If you are using Unix:

To create an m-file, use your favorite text editor (pico, nedit, vi, emacs, etc.) to create a file with
.m extension (e.g. filename.m).

How to run the m-file?

After the m-file is saved with the name filename.m in the current MATLAB folder or directory,
you can execute the commands in the m-file by simply typing filename at the MATLAB
command window prompt.

If you don't want to run the whole m-file, you can just copy the part of the m-file that you want to
run and paste it at the MATLAB prompt.

1.8. Getting Help in MATLAB

MATLAB has a fairly good on-line help, type:

help commandname

for more information on any given command. You do need to know the name of the command that
you are looking for; a list of the all the ones used in these tutorials is given in the command listing;
a link to this page can be found at top right of this page.

Here are a few notes to end this tutorial.

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You can get the value of a particular variable at any time by typing its name.

B
B =
1 2 3 4
5 6 7 8
9 10 11 12

You can also have more than one statement on a single line, so long as you separate them with
either a semicolon or comma.

Also, you may have noticed that so long as you do not assign a variable a specific operation or
result, MATLAB will store it in a temporary variable called ans.

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