generate periodic function from given function - matlab

Question

let say that from given function f(t), we want to construct new function which is given from existed function by this way
where T is some constant let say T=3; of course k can't be from -infinity to infinity in reality because we can't do infinity summation using computer,so it is first my afford
first let us define our function
function y=f(t);
y=-1/(t^2);
end
and second program
k=-1000:1:999;
F=zeros(1,length(k));
T=3;
for t=1:length(k)
F(t)=sum(f(t+k*T));
end
but when i am running second program ,i am getting
>> program
Error using ^
Inputs must be a scalar and a square matrix.
To compute elementwise POWER, use POWER (.^) instead.
Error in f (line 2)
y=-1/(t^2);
Error in program (line 5)
F(t)=sum(f(t+k*T));
so i have two question related to this program :
1.first what is error why it shows me mistake
how can i do it in excel? can i simplify it somehow? thanks in advance
EDITED :
i have changed my code by this way
k=-1000:1:999;
F=zeros(1,length(k));
T=3;
for t=1:length(k)
result=0;
for l=1:length(k)
result=result+f(t+k(l)*T);
end
F(t)=result;
end
is it ok?

Answer 1

To solve your problem in a vectorized way, you'll have to change the function f such that it can be called with vectors as input. This is, as #patrik suggested, achieved by using the element-wise operators .* ./ .^ (Afaik, no .+ .- exist). Unfortunately the comment of #rayryeng is not entirely correct, which may have lead to confusion. The correct way is to use the element-wise operators for both the division ./ and the square .^:
function y = f(t)
y = -1 ./ (t.^2);
end
Your existing code (first version)
k = -1000:1:999;
F = zeros(1,length(k));
T = 3;
for t=1:length(k)
F(t) = sum(f(t+k*T));
end
then works as expected (and is much faster then the version you posted in the edit).
You can even eliminate the for loop and use arrayfun instead. For simple functions f, you can also use function handles instead of creating a separate file. This gives
f = #(t) -1 ./ (t.^2);
k = -1000:1:999;
t = 1:2000;
T = 3;
F = arrayfun(#(x)sum(f(x+k*T)), t);
and is even faster and a simple one-liner. arrayfun takes any function handle as first input. We create a function handle which takes an argument x and does the sum over all k: #(x) sum(f(x+k*T). The second argument, the vector t, contains all values for which the function handle is evaluated.
As proposed by #Divakar in comments, you can also use the bsxfun function:
f = #(t) -1 ./ (t.^2);
k = -1000:1:999;
t = 1:2000;
T = 3;
F = sum(f(bsxfun(#plus,k*T,t.')),2);
where bsxfun creates a matrix containing all combinations between t and k*T, they are all evaluated using f(...) and last, the sum along the second dimension sums over all k's.
Benchmarking
Lets compare these solutions:
Combination of for loop and sum (original question):
Elapsed time is 0.043969 seconds.
Go through all combinations in 2 for loops (edited question):
Elapsed time is 1.367181 seconds.
Vectorized approach with arrayfun:
Elapsed time is 0.063748 seconds.
Vectorized approach with bsxfun as proposed by #Divakar:
Elapsed time is 0.099399 seconds.
So (sadly) the first solution including a for loop beats both vectorized approaches. For larger k vectors (-10000:1:9999), this behavior can be reproduced. The conclusion seems to be that MATLAB has indeed learned how to optimize for loops.