Introduction to MATLAB

ES 156 Signals and Systems 2007

Harvard SEAS

Prepared by Jiajun Gu
 Outline
• Introduction and where to get MATLAB
• Data structure: matrices, vectors and
operations
• Basic line plots
• File I/O
 Where to get MATLAB
• FAS computing:
– Download from
http://fas.harvard.edu/computing/software/
– You must be on FAS network to use MATLAB
• HSEAS IT
– Maxwell Dworkin Rooms G107-G111
• Mathworks:
– Student version is affordable and complete.
 What is MATLAB

• High level language for technical

computing
• Stands for MATrix LABoratory
• Everything is a matrix - easy to do linear
algebra
 The MATLAB System

• Development Environment
• Mathematical Function Library
• MATLAB language
• Application Programming Language (not
discussed today)
 MATLAB Desktop
Menu and toolbar

Workspace

History Command
 Matrices & Vectors
• All (almost) entities in MATLAB are
matrices
>> A = [16 3; 5 10]
• Easy to define: A = 16 3
5 10

• Use ‘,’ or ‘ ’ to separate row elements -- use

‘;’ to separate rows
 Matrices & Vectors - II
• Order of Matrix - mn
– m=no. of rows, n=no. of columns

• Vectors -
special case
–n=1 column vector
–m=1 row vector
 Creating Vectors and Matrices
• Define >> A = [16 3; 5 10]
A = 16 3
5 10
>> B = [3 4 5
6 7 8]
B = 3 4 5
6 7 8

• Transpose
Matrix:
Vector : >> A=[1 2; 3 4];
>> a=[1 2 3]; >> A'
>> a' ans =
1 1 3
2 2 4
3
 Creating Vectors
Create vector with equally spaced intervals
>> x=0:0.5:pi
x =
0 0.5000 1.0000 1.5000 2.0000 2.5000 3.0000

Create vector with n equally spaced intervals

>> x=linspace(0, pi, 7)
x =
0 0.5236 1.0472 1.5708 2.0944 2.6180 3.1416

Equal spaced intervals in logarithm space

>> x=logspace(1,2,7)
x =
10.0000 14.6780 21.5443 … 68.1292 100.0000

Note: MATLAB uses pi to represent  , uses i or j to represent imaginary

unit
 Creating Matrices
• zeros(m, n): matrix with all zeros
• ones(m, n): matrix with all ones.
• eye(m, n): the identity matrix
• rand(m, n): uniformly distributed random
• randn(m, n): normally distributed random
• magic(m): square matrix whose elements
have the same sum, along the row, column
and diagonal.
• pascal(m) : Pascal matrix.
 Matrix operations
• ^: exponentiation
• *: multiplication
• /: division
• \: left division. The operation A\B is
effectively the same as INV(A)*B, although
left division is calculated differently and is
much quicker.
• +: addition
• -: subtraction
 Array Operations
• Evaluated element by element
.' : array transpose (non-conjugated
transpose)
.^ : array power
.* : array multiplication
./ : array division
• Very different from Matrix operations
>> A=[1 2;3 4]; But:
>> B=[5 6;7 8]; >> A.*B
>> A*B 5 12
19 22 21 32
43 50
 Some Built-in functions
• mean(A):mean value of a vector
• max(A), min (A): maximum and minimum.
• sum(A): summation.
• sort(A): sorted vector
• median(A): median value
• std(A): standard deviation.
• det(A) : determinant of a square matrix
• dot(a,b): dot product of two vectors
• Cross(a,b): cross product of two vectors
• Inv(A): Inverse of a matrix A
 Indexing Matrices
Given the matrix: A = n
0.9501 0.6068 0.4231
m 0.2311 0.4860 0.2774
Then:
A(1,2) = 0.6068 Aij ,i  1...m, j  1...n
A(3) = 0.6068
index  (i 1)m  j
A(:,1) = [0.9501
1:m  ]
0.2311


A(1,2:3)=[0.6068 0.4231]
Adding Elements to a Vector or a Matrix
>> A=1:3 >> C=[1 2; 3 4]
A= C=
1 2 3 1 2
>> A(4:6)=5:2:9 3 4
A= >> C(3,:)=[5 6];
1 2 3 5 7 9 C=
1 2
>> B=1:2 3 4
B= 5 6
1 2
>> B(5)=7; >> D=linspace(4,12,3);
B= >> E=[C D’]
1 2 0 0 7 E=
1 2 4
3 4 8
5 6 12
 Graphics - 2D Plots
plot(xdata, ydata, ‘marker_style’);
For example: Gives:
>> x=-5:0.1:5;
>> sqr=x.^2;
>> pl1=plot(x, sqr, 'r:s');
 Graphics - Overlay Plots
Use hold on for overlaying graphs
So the following: Gives:
>> hold on;
>> cub=x.^3;
>> pl2=plot(x, cub,‘b-o');
 Graphics - Annotation
Use title, xlabel, ylabel and legend for
annotation
>> title('Demo plot');
>> xlabel('X Axis');
>> ylabel('Y Axis');
>> legend([pl1, pl2], 'x^2', 'x^3');
Graphics - Annotation
 Graphics-Stem()
• stem()is to plot discrete sequence data
• The usage of stem() is very similar to
plot() cos(n/4)
1

>> n=-10:10;
>> f=stem(n,cos(n*pi/4)) 0.5
>> title('cos(n\pi/4)')
>> xlabel('n') 0

-0.5

-1
-10 -5 0 5 10
n
 subplots
• Use subplots to divide a plotting window
into several panes. Cosine Sine
1 1

>> x=0:0.1:10; 0.8 0.8

>> f=figure; 0.6 0.6

>> f1=subplot(1,2,1); 0.4 0.4

>> plot(x,cos(x),'r'); 0.2 0.2

>> grid on; 0 0

>> title('Cosine')
-0.2 -0.2
>> f2=subplot(1,2,2);
>> plot(x,sin(x),'d'); -0.4 -0.4

>> grid on; -0.6 -0.6

>> title('Sine'); -0.8 -0.8

-1 -1
0 5 10 0 5 10
 Save plots
• Use saveas(h,'filename.ext') to save a
figure to a file.
Useful extension types:
bmp: Windows bitmap
>> f=figure;
emf: Enhanced metafile
>> x=-5:0.1:5;
eps: EPS Level 1
>> h=plot(x,cos(2*x+pi/3));
fig: MATLAB figure
>> title('Figure 1');
jpg: JPEG image
>> xlabel('x');
m: MATLAB M-file
>> saveas(h,'figure1.fig')
tif: TIFF image, compressed
>> saveas(h,'figure1.eps')
 Workspace
• Matlab remembers old commands
• And variables as well
• Each Function maintains its own scope
• The keyword clear removes all variables
from workspace
• The keyword who lists the variables
 File I/O
• Matlab has a native file format to save and
load workspaces. Use keywords load and
save.
• In addition MATLAB knows a large number
of popular formats. Type “help
fileformats” for a listing.
• In addition MATLAB supports ‘C’ style low
level file I/O. Type “help fprintf” for more
information.
 Practice Problems
• Plot the following signals in linear scale

x(t )  sin( 3t ) 5  t  5
y (t )  e 2t 3 0t 5
• Plot the following signals, use log scale for y-axis

x(t )  et  2 (2t  1) 0  t  10
• Plot the real part and imaginary part of the following signal

x(t )  e0.5t  j (t  / 3) 0  t  10

• For the signal in previous question, plot its phase and magnitude