Can I Expand "Nested" Symbolic Functions in Matlab? - matlab

Question

I'm trying to model the effect of different filter "building blocks" on a system which is a construct based on these filters.
I would like the basic filters to be "modular", i.e. they should be "replaceable", without rewriting the construct which is based upon the basic filters.
For example, I have a system of filters G_0, G_1, which is defined in terms of some basic filters called H_0 and H_1.
I'm trying to do the following:
syms z
syms H_0(z) H_1(z)
G_0(z)=H_0(z^(4))*H_0(z^(2))*H_0(z)
G_1(z)=H_1(z^(4))*H_0(z^(2))*H_0(z)
This declares the z-domain I'd like to work in, and a construct of two filters G_0,G_1, based on the basic filters H_0,H_1.
Now, I'm trying to evaluate the construct in terms of some basic filters:
H_1(z) = 1+z^-1
H_0(z) = 1+0*z^-1
What I would like to get at this point is an expanded polynomial of z.
E.g. for the declarations above, I'd like to see that G_0(z)=1, and that G_1(z)=1+z^(-4).
I've tried stuff like "subs(G_0(z))", "formula(G_0(z))", "formula(subs(subs(G_0(z))))", but I keep getting result in terms of H_0 and H_1.
Any advice? Many thanks in advance.
Edit - some clarifications:
In reality, I have 10-20 transfer functions like G_0 and G_1, so I'm trying to avoid re-declaring all of them every time I change the basic blocks H_0 and H_1. The basic blocks H_0 and H_1 would actually be of a much higher degree than they are in the example here.
G_0 and G_1 will not change after being declared, only H_0 and H_1 will.
H_0(z^2) means using z^2 as an argument for H_0(z). So wherever z appears in the declaration of H_0, z^2 should be plugged in
The desired output is a function in terms of z, not H_0 and H_1.
A workable hack is having an m-File containing the declarations of the construct (G_0 and G_1 in this example), which is run every time H_0 and H_1 are redefined. I was wondering if there's a more elegant way of doing it, along the lines of the (non-working) code shown above.

Answer 1

This seems to work quite nicely, and is very easily extendable. I redefined H_0 to H_1 as an example only.
syms z
H_1(z) = 1+z^-1;
H_0(z) = 1+0*z^-1;
G_0=#(Ha,z) Ha(z^(4))*Ha(z^(2))*Ha(z);
G_1=#(Ha,Hb,z) Hb(z^(4))*Ha(z^(2))*Ha(z);
G_0(H_0,z)
G_1(H_0,H_1,z)
H_0=#(z) H_1(z);
G_0(H_0,z)
G_1(H_0,H_1,z)

Answer 2

This seems to be a namespace issue. You can't define a symbolic expression or function in terms of arbitrary/abstract symfuns and then later on define these symfuns explicitly and be able to use them to obtain an exploit form of the original symbolic expression or function (at least not easily). Here's an example of how a symbolic function can be replaced by name:
syms z y(z)
x(z) = y(z);
y(z) = z^2; % Redefines y(z)
subs(x,'y(z)',y)
Unfortunately, this method depends on specifying the function(s) to be substituted exactly – because strings are used, Matlab sees arbitrary/abstract symfuns with different arguments as different functions. So the following example does not work as it returns y(z^2):
syms z y(z)
x(z) = y(z^2); % Function of z^2 instead
y(z) = z^2;
subs(x,'y(z)',y)
But if the last line was changed to subs(x,'y(z^2)',y) it would work.
So one option might be to form strings for case, but that seems overly complex and inelegant. I think that it would make more sense to simply not explicitly (re)define your arbitrary/abstract H_0, H_1, etc. functions and instead use other variables. In terms of the simple example:
syms z y(z)
x(z) = y(z^2);
y_(z) = z^2; % Create new explicit symfun
subs(x,y,y_)
which returns z^4. For your code:
syms z H_0(z) H_1(z)
G_0(z) = H_0(z^4)*H_0(z^2)*H_0(z);
G_1(z) = H_1(z^4)*H_0(z^2)*H_0(z);
H_0_(z) = 1+0*z^-1;
H_1_(z) = 1+z^-1;
subs(G_0, {H_0, H_1}, {H_0_, H_1_})
subs(G_1, {H_0, H_1}, {H_0_, H_1_})
which returns
ans(z) =
1
ans(z) =
1/z^4 + 1
You can then change H_0_ and H_1_, etc. at will and use subs to evaluateG_1andG_2` again.