Why Am I Learning How to Program in MATLAB?

1. MATLAB allows you to evaluate mathematical relationships (plug in numbers and get corresponding output numbers) and display these as graphs, charts, images, sounds, etc. Such graphs help you make engineering decisions that might be impossible by just staring at the equations. MATLAB is perhaps the best computer language for evaluating and plotting mathematical functions. Visualization of mathematical relationships between physical quantities, in the form of plots, provides tremendous insight. Plots bring equations to “life”!

2. To perform complex mathematical operations required in many engineering tasks, such as:

· Solving N equations for N unknowns

· Finding roots of a polynomial

· Solving differential equations

· Computing integrals (area under curves), which may have no closed form mathematical solution.

Many of the mathematical problems engineers must solve are too complicated or tedious to do by hand. We need computer help! Ready-made software may not be available to solve or assist you with your particular problem, so you have to develop it. MATLAB is a language designed for solving mathematical problems. It has a symbolic toolbox allowing for symbolic solutions to mathematically problems, in addition to numerical solutions.

3. MATLAB allows you to simulate real-world systems in an inexpensive and risk-free manner. We will use MATLAB to simulate the operation of an electric circuit and a DC motor. Thus, MATLAB can be used to help design, test, and refine designs through computer simulation.

4. MATLAB gives you a tool for performing digital signal processing. A digital signal is any physical quantity stored as a sequence of numbers. Digital signal processing is the modification of such signals/numbers, typically to enhance or improve some characteristics of the signal. Digital audio signals include MP3 and WAV files. Digital images (like JPEG or TIFF) are also digital signals that can be viewed and processed/modified in MATLAB. A variety of sensors (temperature sensors, wind sensors, accelerometers, etc.) are used in engineering and these produce many types of digital signals.

5. MATLAB is an excellent prototyping tool. Because of its huge library of functions and integrated plotting capability, it lets you quickly test ideas and algorithms. Once a final solution is obtained, the MATLAB code can be translated (manually or automatically) into C++, for example, for the customer. This is how many companies operate.