How to solve an equation with piecewise defined function in Matlab? - matlab

I have been working on solving some equation in a more complicated context. However, I want to illustrate my question through the following simple example.
Consider the following two functions:
function y=f1(x)
y=1-x;
end
function y=f2(x)
if x<0
y=0;
else
y=x;
end
end
I want to solve the following equation: f1(x)=f2(x). The code I used is:
syms x;
x=solve(f1(x)-f2(x));
And I got the following error:
??? Error using ==> sym.sym>notimplemented at 2621
Function 'lt' is not implemented for MuPAD symbolic objects.
Error in ==> sym.sym>sym.lt at 812
notimplemented('lt');
Error in ==> f2 at 3
if x<0
I know the error is because x is a symbolic variable and therefore I could not compare x with 0 in the piecewise function f2(x).
Is there a way to fix this and solve the equation?

First, make sure symbolic math is even the appropriate solution method for your problem. In many cases it isn't. Look at fzero and fsolve amongst many others. A symbolic method is only needed if, for example, you want a formula or if you need to ensure precision.
In such an old version of Matlab, you may want to break up your piecewise function into separate continuous functions and solve them separately:
syms x;
s1 = solve(1-x^2,x) % For x >= 0
s2 = solve(1-x,x) % For x < 0
Then you can either manually examine or numerically compare the outputs to determine if any or all of the solutions are valid for the chosen regime – something like this:
s = [s1(double(s1) >= 0);s2(double(s2) < 0)]
You can also take advantage of the heaviside function, which is available in much older versions.
syms x;
f1 = 1-x;
f2 = x*heaviside(x);
s = solve(f1-f2,x)
Yes, the Heaviside function is 0.5 at zero – this gives it the appropriate mathematical properties. You can shift it to compare values other than zero. This is a standard technique.
In Matlab R2012a+, you can take advantage of assumptions in addition to the normal relational operators. To add to #AlexB's comment, you should convert the output of any logical comparison to symbolic before using isAlways:
isAlways(sym(x<0))
In your case, x is obviously not "always" on one side or the other of zero, but you may still find this useful in other cases.
If you want to get deep into Matlab's symbolic math, you can create piecewise functions using MuPAD, which are accessible from Matlab – e.g., see my example here.

Related

Minimizing Function with vector valued input in MATLAB

I want to minimize a function like below:
Here, n can be 5,10,50 etc. I want to use Matlab and want to use Gradient Descent and Quasi-Newton Method with BFGS update to solve this problem along with backtracking line search. I am a novice in Matlab. Can anyone help, please? I can find a solution for a similar problem in that link: https://www.mathworks.com/help/optim/ug/unconstrained-nonlinear-optimization-algorithms.html .
But, I really don't know how to create a vector-valued function in Matlab (in my case input x can be an n-dimensional vector).
You will have to make quite a leap to get where you want to be -- may I suggest to go through some basic tutorial first in order to digest basic MATLAB syntax and concepts? Another useful read is the very basic example to unconstrained optimization in the documentation. However, the answer to your question touches only basic syntax, so we can go through it quickly nevertheless.
The absolute minimum to invoke the unconstraint nonlinear optimization algorithms of the Optimization Toolbox is the formulation of an objective function. That function is supposed to return the function value f of your function at any given point x, and in your case it reads
function f = objfun(x)
f = sum(100 * (x(2:end) - x(1:end-1).^2).^2 + (1 - x(1:end-1)).^2);
end
Notice that
we select the indiviual components of the x vector by matrix indexing, and that
the .^ notation effects that the operand is to be squared elementwise.
For simplicity, save this function to a file objfun.m in your current working directory, so that you have it available from the command window.
Now all you have to do is to call the appropriate optimization algorithm, say, the quasi Newton method, from the command window:
n = 10; % Use n variables
options = optimoptions(#fminunc,'Algorithm','quasi-newton'); % Use QM method
x0 = rand(n,1); % Random starting guess
[x,fval,exitflag] = fminunc(#objfun, x0, options); % Solve!
fprintf('Final objval=%.2e, exitflag=%d\n', fval, exitflag);
On my machine I see that the algorithm converges:
Local minimum found.
Optimization completed because the size of the gradient is less than
the default value of the optimality tolerance.
Final objval=5.57e-11, exitflag=1

Matlab: Solving a linear system of anonymous functions

I have a system of equations...
dF(a,b,c)/da = 0;
dF(a,b,c)/db = 0;
dF(a,b,c)/dc = 0;
where a,b,c are unknown variable constants and dF/d* are anonymous functions of the variables. I have to solve for a,b and c in an optimization problem. When the system reduces to just one equation, I use Matlab's fzero to solve for the variable and it works. For example
var_a = fzero(#(a) dF(a)/da,0);
After noticing that fzero and fsolve give dramatically different answers for some cases I did some searching. From what I gather, fzero only works for a single equation of a single variable? So moving to a system of equations, I'd like to choose the most appropriate method. I've used Matlab's solve in the past, but I believe that is for symbolic expressions only? What is the best method for solving a linear system of anonymous functions, which all equal zero?
I tried the following, and got back results
vars = fsolve(#(V)[dF(V)/da;dF(V)/db;dF(V)/dc],zeros(1,3));
where vars contains all 3 variables, but after reading the examples in the previous link, Fsolve couldn't exactly find the zeros for x^2 and x^3. The solution vector in the system I presented above is all zeros and the functions are polynomials. Putting this all together, I'm wondering if fsolve isn't the best choice?
Can I build a system of calls to fzero? Something along the lines of
vars = [fzero(#(a) dF(a,b,c)/da,0);
fzero(#(b) dF(a,b,c)/db,0);
fzero(#(c) dF(a,b,c)/dc,0)];
which I don't think would work (how would each dF/d* get the other 2 variable inputs?) or would it?
Any thoughts?
You can numerically solve to minimize any function using 'lsqnonlin'. To adopt this for a system of equations, simply turn them into a single function with a vector input. Something like this:
fToMinimize = #(abc) ...
(dF(ABC(1),ABC(2),ABC(3))/da)^2 +...
(dF(ABC(1),ABC(2),ABC(3))/db)^2 +...
(dF(ABC(1),ABC(2),ABC(3))/dc)^2 ;
abcSolved = lsqnonlin(fToMinimize, [0 0 0])
If you have a guess for the values of a, b, and c, you can (and should) use those instead of the [0 0 0] vector. There are also many options within the lsqnonlin function to adjust behavior. For example how close to the best answer you want to get. If the functions are well behaved, you should be able to tighten the tolerance down a lot, if you are looking for a near exact answer.

How to find the intersections of two functions in MATLAB?

Lets say, I have a function 'x' and a function '2sin(x)'
How do I output the intersects, i.e. the roots in MATLAB? I can easily plot the two functions and find them that way but surely there must exist an absolute way of doing this.
If you have two analytical (by which I mean symbolic) functions, you can define their difference and use fzero to find a zero, i.e. the root:
f = #(x) x; %defines a function f(x)
g = #(x) 2*sin(x); %defines a function g(x)
%solve f==g
xroot = fzero(#(x)f(x)-g(x),0.5); %starts search from x==0.5
For tricky functions you might have to set a good starting point, and it will only find one solution even if there are multiple ones.
The constructs seen above #(x) something-with-x are called anonymous functions, and they can be extended to multivariate cases as well, like #(x,y) 3*x.*y+c assuming that c is a variable that has been assigned a value earlier.
When writing the comments, I thought that
syms x; solve(x==2*sin(x))
would return the expected result. At least in Matlab 2013b solve fails to find a analytic solution for this problem, falling back to a numeric solver only returning one solution, 0.
An alternative is
s = feval(symengine,'numeric::solve',2*sin(x)==x,x,'AllRealRoots')
which is taken from this answer to a similar question. Besides using AllRealRoots you could use a numeric solver, manually setting starting points which roughly match the values you have read from the graph. This wa you get precise results:
[fzero(#(x)f(x)-g(x),-2),fzero(#(x)f(x)-g(x),0),fzero(#(x)f(x)-g(x),2)]
For a higher precision you could switch from fzero to vpasolve, but fzero is probably sufficient and faster.

For loop equation into Octave / Matlab code

I'm using octave 3.8.1 which works like matlab.
I have an array of thousands of values I've only included three groupings as an example below:
(amp1=0.2; freq1=3; phase1=1; is an example of one grouping)
t=0;
amp1=0.2; freq1=3; phase1=1; %1st grouping
amp2=1.4; freq2=2; phase2=1.7; %2nd grouping
amp3=0.8; freq3=5; phase3=1.5; %3rd grouping
The Octave / Matlab code below solves for Y so I can plug it back into the equation to check values along with calculating values not located in the array.
clear all
t=0;
Y=0;
a1=[.2,3,1;1.4,2,1.7;.8,5,1.5]
for kk=1:1:length(a1)
Y=Y+a1(kk,1)*cos ((a1(kk,2))*t+a1(kk,3))
kk
end
Y
PS: I'm not trying to solve for Y since it's already solved for I'm trying to solve for Phase
The formulas located below are used to calculate Phase but I'm not sure how to put it into a for loop that will work in an array of n groupings:
How would I write the equation / for loop for finding the phase if I want to find freq=2.5 and amp=.23 and the phase is unknown I've looked online and it may require writing non linear equations which I'm not sure how to convert what I'm trying to do into such an equation.
phase1_test=acos(Y/amp1-amp3*cos(2*freq3*pi*t+phase3)/amp1-amp2*cos(2*freq2*pi*t+phase2)/amp1)-2*freq1*pi*t
phase2_test=acos(Y/amp2-amp3*cos(2*freq3*pi*t+phase3)/amp2-amp1*cos(2*freq1*pi*t+phase1)/amp2)-2*freq2*pi*t
phase3_test=acos(Y/amp3-amp2*cos(2*freq2*pi*t+phase2)/amp3-amp1*cos(2*freq1*pi*t+phase1)/amp3)-2*freq2*pi*t
Image of formula below:
I would like to do a check / calculate phases if given a freq and amp values.
I know I have to do a for loop but how do I convert the phase equation into a for loop so it will work on n groupings in an array and calculate different values not found in the array?
Basically I would be given an array of n groupings and freq=2.5 and amp=.23 and use the formula to calculate phase. Note: freq will not always be in the array hence why I'm trying to calculate the phase using a formula.
Ok, I think I finally understand your question:
you are trying to find a set of phase1, phase2,..., phaseN, such that equations like the ones you describe are satisfied
You know how to find y, and you supply values for freq and amp.
In Matlab, such a problem would be solved using, for example fsolve, but let's look at your problem step by step.
For simplicity, let me re-write your equations for phase1, phase2, and phase3. For example, your first equation, the one for phase1, would read
amp1*cos(phase1 + 2 freq1 pi t) + amp2*cos(2 freq2 pi t + phase2) + amp3*cos(2 freq3 pi t + phase3) - y = 0
Note that ampX (X is a placeholder for 1, 2, 3) are given, pi is a constant, t is given via Y (I think), freqX are given.
Hence, you are, in fact, dealing with a non-linear vector equation of the form
F(phase) = 0
where F is a multi-dimensional (vector) function taking a multi-dimensional (vector) input variable phase (comprised of phase1, phase2,..., phaseN). And you are looking for the set of phaseX, where all of the components of your vector function F are zero. N.B. F is a shorthand for your functions. Therefore, the first component of F, called f1, for example, is
f1 = amp1*cos(phase1+...) + amp2*cos(phase2+...) + amp3*cos(phase3+...) - y = 0.
Hence, f1 is a one-dimensional function of phase1, phase2, and phase3.
The technical term for what you are trying to do is find a zero of a non-linear vector function, or find a solution of a non-linear vector function. In Matlab, there are different approaches.
For a one-dimensional function, you can use fzero, which is explained at http://www.mathworks.com/help/matlab/ref/fzero.html?refresh=true
For a multi-dimensional (vector) function as yours, I would look into using fsolve, which is part of Matlab's optimization toolbox (which means I don't know how to do this in Octave). The function fsolve is explained at http://www.mathworks.com/help/optim/ug/fsolve.html
If you know an approximate solution for your phases, you may also look into iterative, local methods.
In particular, I would recommend you look into the Newton's Method, which allows you to find a solution to your system of equations F. Wikipedia has a good explanation of Newton's Method at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newton%27s_method . Newton iterations are very simple to implement and you should find a lot of resources online. You will have to compute the derivative of your function F with respect to each of your variables phaseX, which is very simple to compute since you're only dealing with cos() functions. For starters, have a look at the one-dimensional Newton iteration method in Matlab at http://www.math.colostate.edu/~gerhard/classes/331/lab/newton.html .
Finally, if you want to dig deeper, I found a textbook on this topic from the society for industrial and applied math: https://www.siam.org/books/textbooks/fr16_book.pdf .
As you can see, this is a very large field; Newton's method should be able to help you out, though.
Good luck!

Is my equation too complex for matlab to integrate?

I have a code that needs to evaluate the arc length equation below:
syms x
a = 10; b = 10; c = 10; d = 10;
fun = 4*a*x^3+3*b*x^2+2*c*x+d
int((1+(fun)^2)^.5)
but all that returns is below:
ans = int(((40*x^3 + 30*x^2 + 20*x + 10)^2 + 1)^(1/2), x)
Why wont matlab evaluate this integral? I added a line under to check if it would evaulate int(x) and it returned the desired result.
Problems involving square roots of functions may be tricky to intgrate. I am not sure whether the integral exists or not, but it if you look up the integral of a second order polynomial you will see that this one is already quite a mess. What you would have, would you expand the function inside the square root, would be a ninth order polynomial. If this integral actually would exist it may be too complex to calculate.
Anyway, if you think about it, would anyone really become any wiser by finding the analytical solution of this? If that is not the case a numerical solution should be sufficient.
EDIT
As thewaywewalk said in the comment, a general rule to calculate these kinds of integrals would be valuable, but to know the primitive function to the particular integral would probably be overkill (if a solution could be found).
Instead define the function as an anonymous function
fun = #(x) sqrt((4*a*x.^3+3*b*x.^2+2*c*x+d).^2+1);
and use integral to evaluate the function between some range, eg
integral(fun,0,100);
for evaluating the function in the closed interval [0,100].