Introduction to MATLAB

The primary developer, Professor Cleve Moler at the University of New Mexico, eventually founded Mathworks Inc. The software package has been commercially available since 1984. In industry; MATLAB is the tool of choice for high-productivity research, development, and analysis.

What is MATLAB?

• MATLAB is a high-performance language (software package) for handling technical computation involved in scientific and engineering problems.
• The name MATLAB stands for matrix laboratory because it provides an environment for matrix calculations.
• MATLAB integrates computation, visualization, and programming in an easy-to-use environment where problems and solutions are expressed in familiar mathematical notation.
• It provides an interactive environment with hundreds of built-in-functions for technical computation, graphics, and animation.

WHY MATLAB is used?

• MATLAB is relatively easy to learn
• MATLAB code is optimized to be relatively quick when performing matrix operations
• MATLAB may behave like a calculator or as a programming language
• MATLAB programs are easier to interpret, and errors are easier to fix.

MatLab can be used for:

1. Mathematics and computation
2. Algorithm development
3. Data acquisition
4. Modeling, simulation, and prototyping
5. Data analysis, exploration, and visualization
6. Scientific and engineering graphics
7. Application development, including graphical user interface building

MATLAB features a family of application-specific solutions called toolboxes. Toolboxes are comprehensive collections of MATLAB functions (M-files) that extend the MATLAB environment to solve particular classes of problems. Some toolboxes are:
· Control System
· Financial
· Fuzzy Logic
· Simulink
· Symbolic Math
· Image Processing
· Neural Network
· Optimization
· Partial Differential Equation
· Signal Processing

The MATLAB System

The MATLAB system consists of five main parts:

1. Development Environment

This is a set of tools and facilities use of MATLAB functions and files. Many of these tools are graphical user interfaces. It includes the MATLAB desktop and Command Window, a command history, an editor and debugger, and browsers for viewing help, the workspace, files, and the search path.

2. The MATLAB Mathematical Function Library

This is a vast collection of computational algorithms ranging from elementary functions like sum, sine, cosine, and complex arithmetic, to more sophisticated functions like matrix inverse, matrix eigenvalues, Bessel functions, and fast Fourier transforms.

3. The MATLAB Language

This is a high-level matrix/array language with control flow statements, functions, data structures, input/output, and object-oriented programming features.

4. Graphics

MATLAB has extensive facilities for displaying vectors and matrices as graphs, as well as annotating and printing these graphs.

5. The MATLAB Application Program Interface (API).

This is a library that allows you to write C and Fortran programs that interact with MATLAB.