Course Information
MATLAB Introductory Course, TSRT04

Information here is only guaranteed to be up-to-date during HT1. The course is given in English in the first autumn study period (HT1) only. However, it may be possible to follow the course also in other study periods, although the introductory lecture will be in Swedish.

If you have questions, please contact tsrt04@isy.liu.se.

Background and Scope

MATLAB is a software tool for technical computations that is used by many engineers around the world. The objective of this course is to give fundamental knowledge about the basics of MATLAB as well as practical skills in working with the system. MATLAB is used in several courses at LiTH and familiarity with this program will therefore become very useful for most students following any educational program at LiTH.

The course contents include:

• The MATLAB syntax and interactive calculations.
• Programming MATLAB using m-file scripts and functions.
• Rudimentary linear algebra and calculus using MATLAB.
• Graphic visualizations.

More information:
Motivating MATLAB examples.
MATLAB and other related tools.

Course Literature

The main course literature is material for the two computer sessions, (Session 1, Session 2). Additional material needed for the laboratory sessions is handed out but will also be made available here.

Apart from the computer session material, you will need some kind of reference literature on MATLAB. One alternative among many is MATLAB for Engineers Explained by Fredrik Gustafsson and Niclas Bergman, Springer Verlag, 2003 (ISBN 1-85233-697-8), 220 pages. The book is available to purchase from "Bokakademin" or "Akademibokhandeln". Alternatively, you can use MATLAB's excellent help and documentation system, any other book on MATLAB, or this very suitable on-line course text .

All students at LiTH have the opportunity to borrow the MATLAB software thanks to a license agreement signed by LiTH and MathWorks. The program is available at the Student portal. We are not involved with license or download issues, please contact helpdesk@student.liu.se regarding this.

Computer Account

To follow the course, you need a computer account at ISY. Normally, you will get it automatically once you have registered to the course and obtained a student mail address. For more information, please read the following FAQ.

Course Plan

The course consists of one introductory lecture, two computer sessions and four lab sessions. The computer sessions are voluntary (but recommended), while the lab sessions are compulsory until the project is finished.

Lecture

The introductory lecture held by examiner Johan Löfberg is mostly directed to you who have not been programming before. We will go through some of MATLAB's basic concepts, and then discuss how to write simple programs in MATLAB. We study simple programming structures, such as if-statements, for- and while-loops (how to repeat the same, or almost the same, thing several times and how to enter alternatives in a program), and how to write these in MATLAB.

Computer and lab sessions

The computer sessions are based on the students' own studies, and closely follow the course material. The course material also contains some preparatory exercises to be done before the first exercise. The assistents are present on the sessions to answer questions from the students.

Computer session 1 introduces MATLAB. What is MATLAB; how can I start the program; where do I get help and more information? The session also includes using MATLAB as a calculator, working with matrices, plotting, and saving data. The concepts of scripts and functions are also introduced. You can also look into one or more concepts you select yourself, for example more about matrices, symbolic calculations, numerics and accuracy.

Computer session 2 contains basic programming with user-defined functions. We learn how to make the program repeat commands (for-, while-loops) and to choose between different alternatives (if statements). The importance of programming in a structured way and of documentation of the code is also stressed. If you already have programming experience, you can choose to study special topics such as object-oriented programming, or writing fast code in MATLAB.

The course gives 2 ECTS-credits, which should be equivalent to about 55 h of studies. This means that you are also expected to study on your own before/between/after the computer sessions.

The lab sessions consist of one assignment about using the plotting possibilities in MATLAB to visualize and present data sets, and one assignment to solving a somewhat larger programming project. You work in groups of two students. During the first session, you will hopefully get started with the solving/coding. You are then expected to work on your own and the remaining lab sessions to solve the exercise.Note that this requires quite some homework!. The lab sessions are mandatory until you have finished the project and the plot assignment. You can also get help by email tsrt04@isy.liu.se. The course responsible read the email and answers as soon as possible. All questions about the course material or practical problems can be sent by email.

Examination

The following are parts of the examination:

• A demonstration of the code you produced in the plot assignment.
• A solution of the programming project. The lab assistant will run some test cases and have a look at the code. The code should fulfill the functional requirements, but also be easy to understand and use.
• An individual quiz before project demonstration.