Interesting Functions in Matlab

Douglas Wilhelm Harder, M.Math. LEL

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
University of Waterloo
Waterloo, Ontario, Canada

ece.uwaterloo.ca
dwharder@alumni.uwaterloo.ca

2012 by Douglas Wilhelm Harder. Some rights reserved.
Outline
You are already familiar with trigonometric and
exponential functions

We will now look at:
square wave functions
saw-toothed wave functions
triangular pulses
the cardinal sine function
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Interesting Functions in Matlab
Square Wave Function
The square-wave function has a period of 2t and an be
thought of as follows:


x = 0:0.0001:20;
plot( x, square( x ) )
ylim( [-1.2 1.2] )
square( 0 )
ans = 1

square( pi )
ans = -1

( )
( ) ( )
( )
( ) ( )
sin sin 0
square 1 2
sin sin 0
n
x x
x x n
x x
t

( >
(

= =

( <

3
Interesting Functions in Matlab
Saw-toothed Wave Functions
The default saw-toothed has a period of 2t and an be
thought of as follows:



x = 0:0.0001:20;
plot( x, sawtooth( x ) )
ylim( [-1.2 1.2] )
sawtooth( 0 )
ans = -1
sawtooth( pi )
ans = -1

( )
sawtooth 2 1
2
x x
x
t t
(
=
(

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Interesting Functions in Matlab
Saw-toothed Wave Functions
A second argument indicates what proportion into the
interval [0, 2t] the peak of the tooth appears
The defualt is identical to sawtooth( x, 1 )

x = 0:0.0001:20;
plot( x, sawtooth( x, 0.5 ) )
ylim( [-1.2 1.2] )
0.5
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Interesting Functions in Matlab
Saw-toothed Wave Functions
The last interesting case has the parameter as 0:



x = 0:0.0001:20;
plot( x, sawtooth( x, 0 ) )
ylim( [-1.2 1.2] )
square( 0 )
ans = 1
square( pi )
ans = -1

( )
sawtooth , 0 1 2
2
x x
x
t t
(
= +
(

6
Interesting Functions in Matlab
The Cardinal Sine Function
The sinc function is not periodic and is defined as:


x = -10:0.0001:10;
plot( x, sinc( x ) )
ylim( [-1.2 1.2] )

( )
( )
1 0
sinc
sin
0
x
x
t
x
t
t
t
=

=

=

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Interesting Functions in Matlab
The Triangular Pulse Function
The triangular-pulse function is not periodic and is
defined as:


x = -2:0.0001:2;
plot( x, tripuls( x ) )
ylim( [-1.2 1.2] )

( )
0 1
1 1 0
tripuls
1 0 1
0 1
x
x x
x
x x
x
s

+ < s

=

< s

<

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Interesting Functions in Matlab
Summary
We have quickly covered some of the special functions
in Matlab
square, sawtooth, tripuls and sinc

This will be used later in applications

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Interesting Functions in Matlab
References
[1] Jack Little, Cleve Moler, and Steve Bangert, Matlab, Mathworks, 1984-
2012.
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Interesting Functions in Matlab