Fitting model to data in matlab - matlab

Question

i have some experimental data and a theoretical model which i would like to try and fit. i have made a function file with the model - the code is shown below
function [ Q,P ] = RodFit(k,C )
% Function file for the theoretical scattering from a Rod
% R = radius, L = length
R = 10; % radius in Å
L = 1000; % length in Å
Q = 0.001:0.0001:0.5;
fun = #(x) ( (2.*besselj(1,Q.*R.*sin(x)))./...
(Q.*R.*sin(x)).*...
(sin(Q.*L.*cos(x)./2))./...
(Q.*L.*cos(x)./2)...
).^2.*sin(x);
P = (integral(fun,0,pi/2,'ArrayValued',true))*k+C;
end
with Q being the x-values and P being the y-values. I can call the function fine from the matlab command line and it works fine e.g. [Q,P] = RodFit(1,0.001) gives me a result i can plot using plot(Q,P)
But i cannot figure how to best find the fit to some experimental data. Ideally, i would like to use the optimization toolbox and lsqcurvefit since i would then also be able to optimize the R and L parameters. but i do not know how to pass (x,y) data to lsqcurvefit. i have attempted it with the code below but it does not work
File = 30; % the specific observation you want to fit the model to
ydata = DataFiles{1,File}.data(:,2)';
% RAdius = linspace(10,1000,length(ydata));
% LEngth = linspace(100,10000,length(ydata));
Multiplier = linspace(1e-3,1e3,length(ydata));
Constant = linspace(0,1,length(ydata));
xdata = [Multiplier; Constant]; % RAdius; LEngth;
L = lsqcurvefit(#RodFit,[1;0],xdata,ydata);
it gives me the error message:
Error using *
Inner matrix dimensions must agree.
Error in RodFit (line 15)
P = (integral(fun,0,pi/2,'ArrayValued',true))*k+C;
Error in lsqcurvefit (line 199)
initVals.F = feval(funfcn_x_xdata{3},xCurrent,XDATA,varargin{:});
Caused by:
Failure in initial user-supplied objective function evaluation. LSQCURVEFIT cannot continue.
i have tried i) making all vectors/matrices the same length and ii) tried using .* instead. nothing works and i am giving the same error message
Any kind of help would be greatly appreciated, whether it is suggestion regading what method is should use, suggestions to my code or something third.
EDIT TO ANSWER Osmoses:
A really good point but i do not think that is the problem. just checked the size of the all the vectors/matrices and they should be alright
>> size(Q)
ans =
1 1780
>> size(P)
ans =
1 1780
>> size(xdata)
ans =
2 1780
>> size([1;0.001]) - the initial guess/start point for xdata (x0)
ans =
2 1
>> size(ydata)
ans =
1 1780
UPDATE
I think i have identified the problem. the function RodFit works fine when i specify the input directly e.g. [Q,P] = RodFit(1,0.001);.
however, if i define x0 as x0 = [1,0.001] i cannot pass x0 to the function
>> x0 = [1;0.001]
x0 =
1.0000
0.0010
>> RodFit(x0);
Error using *
Inner matrix dimensions must agree.
Error in RodFit (line 15)
P = (integral(fun,0,pi/2,'ArrayValued',true))*k+C;
The same happens if i use x0 = [1,0.001]
clearly, matlab is interpreting x0 as input for k only and attempts to multiplay a vector of length(ydata) and a vector of length(x0) which obviously fails.
So my problem is that i need to code so that lsqcurvefit understands that the first column of xdata and x0 is the k variable and the second column of xdata and x0 is the C variable. According to the documentation - Passing Matrix Arguments - i should be able to pass x0 as a matrix to the solver. The solver should then also pass the xdata in the same format as x0.

Answer 1

Have you tried (that's sometimes the mistake) looking at the orientation of your input data (e.g. if xdata & ydata are both row/column vectors?). Other than that your code looks like it should work.

Answer 2

I have been able to solve some of the problems. One mistake in my code was that the objective function did not use of vector a variables but instead took in two variables - k and C. changing the code to accept a vector solved this problem
function [ Q,P ] = RodFit(X)
% Function file for the theoretical scattering from a Rod
% R = radius, L = length
% Q = 0.001:0.0001:0.5;
Q = linspace(0.11198,4.46904,1780);
fun = #(x) ( (2.*besselj(1,Q.*R.*sin(x)))./...
(Q.*R.*sin(x)).*...
(sin(Q.*L.*cos(x)./2))./...
(Q.*L.*cos(x)./2)...
).^2.*sin(x);
P = (integral(fun,0,pi/2,'ArrayValued',true))*X(1)+X(2);
with the code above, i can define x0 as x0 = [1 0.001];, and pass that into RodFit and get a result. i can also pass xdata into the function and get a result e.g. [Q,P] = RodFit(xdata(2,:));
Notice i have changed the orientation of all vectors so that they are now row-vectors and xdata has size size(xdata) = 1780 2
so i thought i had solved the problem completely but i still run into problems when i run lsqcurvefit. i get the error message
Error using RodFit
Too many input arguments.
Error in lsqcurvefit (line 199)
initVals.F = feval(funfcn_x_xdata{3},xCurrent,XDATA,varargin{:});
Caused by:
Failure in initial user-supplied objective function evaluation. LSQCURVEFIT cannot continue.
i have no idea why - does anyone have any idea about why Rodfit recieves to many input arguments when i call lsqcurvefit but not when i run the function manual using xdata?