General Information
MATLAB is an extremely versatile computational tool. According to Mathworks,
the maker of MATLAB,
they describe their product as follows: MATLAB is an intuitive language and
a technical computing environment. It provides core mathematics and advanced
graphical tools for data analysis, visualization, and algorithm and application
development. With more than 600 mathematical, statistical, and engineering
functions, engineers and scientists rely on the MATLAB environment for their
technical computing needs.
We currently have about 100 seat licenses in the PC labs, so that should cover most of your needs, except maybe the last 2-3 weeks of classes, when everyone and their mother's brother's hamster is trying to complete end of semester projects.
Advertising aside, for all of my courses, I normally have a programming project, and I usually have my students use MATLAB to develop the required modeling tools. In my opinion, one of the smartest things you could do, if you plan on doing extensive work in Electromagnetics, EMC, Microwave Engineering, Radar, or Digital Signal/Image Processing is to get your own copy of the Student edition of MATLAB. Release 14, Service Pack 1 is the latest version. With this on your computer, you can free yourself from the computer lab, and it's cheaper than the cost of a typical engineering text. Remember the last few weeks of the semester and the competition from the hamsters.
Tutorial information
If you haven't used MATLAB before, it's time to get started. While it
is fairly easy to use, there is a bit of a learning curve, especially
when learning how to use the Graphical User Interface (GUI) capability
of the language. To help you get started, the following are some useful
documents that cover MATLAB's capabilities.
The first place to start is at MATLAB's documentation page. From here, you can access many MATLAB documents in both HTML and PDF format.
For a brief introduction to MATLAB, download their
Getting Started manual.
For a local copy of this document, click here. (2.6 MB)
For a more detailed overview of MATLAB's capabilities, download their
Using MATLAB manual.
For a local copy of this document, click here. (10.4 MB)
For information about the graphics capability of MATLAB, download their
Using MATLAB Graphics manual.
For a local copy of this document, click here. (13.2 MB)
For information about the Graphical User Interface (GUI) capability of
MATLAB, download their
Creating Graphical User Interfaces manual.
For a local copy of this document, click here. (2.0 MB)
Finally, there are three Toolboxes that you should become familiar with,
especially if you intend to use MATLAB professionally after you finish
this course. They are
the Statistics Toolbox,
the Signal Processing Toolbox, and
the Image Processing Toolbox.
These three toolboxes have all the functions you need to carry out almost any type of processing on radar signals. Additionally, you will probably be using some of these functions for your programming project.
In addition to the documentation and examples on the Mathworks web site, they also have a fairly active user community, as well as resources for academic activity, including a large number of MATLAB files for sharing. If you look, there is a good chance that someone might have submitted a MATLAB routine that does what you want.
Additionally, there are several other places on the web where you can find some very nice tutorial information on MATLAB. Among the more useful ones are the following:
Indiana University has a nice MATLAB web page, with tutorial information. Additionally, their links page has a large number of useful pointers to other tutorials and examples. A very good place to start.
MIT also has a MATLAB tutorial web page, though somewhat more specific to MIT's system than Indiana's. Still useful though.
Finally, Carnegie Mellon and the University of Michigan have a joint MATLAB tutorial that covers the basics. Additionally, they have a nice controls tutorial that also covers Simulink. Though these tutorial are somewhat dated, they are still quite applicable for a first time user of MATLAB.
Of course, a Google search on "MATLAB tutorial" will give you over 4,000 hits, so if the links above don't do it for you, try Google. In any case, the above should get you started.
To help you use MATLAB to solve your homework assignments, here are a few suggestions to get you started. First, because I use MATLAB in all of the courses I teach, there are often resources available on each of the class web pages for the courses I teach. Thus, the ECE 3870 - Electromagnetics I course web pages have links to MATLAB resources available for my students. For instance, if you go to the web site for the textbook by Lonngren, listed on the main page as a recommended supplement, you'll find many example MATLAB m-files you can use. Or, if you click on the link for the on-line text by Orfanidis, you'll end up at a web site with a large number of usable m-files. Or, if you go to the ECE 6490 - Radar I course web pages, especially the project page, there are a large number MATLAB resources you can use.
Second, you can go to the MATLAB web site, and take advantage of both their resources for Academia as well as general user community, as well as their resources for the general User Community. Clicking on the Academia link will put on a page for both students and faculty. Under Student Center, there is a link for MATLAB & Simulink Tutorials. Under Faculty Center, there is a link to a Textbook by Cleve Moler, which you can download, as well as the associated m-files. Take the time to download at least the first chapter of this text and look it over. It is a nice tutorial on how to use the basics of MATLAB. Clicking on the User Community Link will take you to MATLAB Central, which has links to thousands of user contributed MATLAB files. For instance, from here, you can find companion software for over a hundred textbooks that used MATLAB. Clicking on "Communications" texts will take you to the software for two books that should prove very useful for you during the course of this semester.
Third, check the web for MATLAB resources to help you find solutions to your problems. Some strategic "Googling" or searching will provide a lot of resources. If you are going to use these resources, copy off the URL of where you find them.
Note that if you use resources from the web, wherever you find them, be sure to give credit to the sources of your information. Do not just copy off a MATLAB m-file from the net, and try to pass it off as your work. This will result in "bad things" in terms of your academic career. Ideally, you should add a comment line to the top of your m-file, noting the URL or source of where you found the m-file.
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Last updated: 9/15/2005