Ordinary Dierential Equations in MATLAB

P. Howard
Fall 2003

Contents
1 Solving Ordinary Dierential Equations in MATLAB
1.1

1.2

Finding Explicit Solutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

1.1.1

First Order Equations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

1.1.2

Second and Higher Order Equations

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

1.1.3

Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Finding Numerical Solutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

1.2.1

First Order Equations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

1.2.2

Second Order Equations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

1.2.3

Solving Systems of ODE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

1.3

Plotting Direction Fields

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

1.4

Plotting Direction Fields: A Second Example . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

1.5

Plotting Phase Diagrams

1.6

Phase Diagrams: A second example

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

11

1.7

Laplace Transforms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

12

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

2 Advanced ODE Topics

12

2.1

Parameters in ODE

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

12

2.2

Boundary Value Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

13

2.3

Event Location . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

14

1 Solving Ordinary Dierential Equations in MATLAB

MATLAB has an extensive library of functions for solving ordinary dierential equations. In these notes,
we will only consider the most rudimentary.

1.1

Finding Explicit Solutions

1.1.1 First Order Equations

Though MATLAB is primarily a numerics package, it can certainly solve straightforward dierential equations symbolically. Suppose, for example, that we want to solve the rst order dierential equation

y 0 (x) = xy.
We can use MATLAB's built-in

dsolve().

(1.1)

The input and output for solving this problem in MATLAB is

given below.
> >y = dsolve('Dy = y*x','x')
y = C1*exp(1/2*x^2)

Notice in particular that MATLAB uses capital D to indicate the derivative and requires that the entire
equation appear in single quotes. MATLAB takes

t to be the independent variable by default, so here x must

be explicitly specied as the independent variable. Alternatively, if you are going to use the same equation

eqn1.

a number of times, you might choose to dene it as a variable, say,

> >eqn1 = 'Dy = y*x'
eqn1 =
Dy = y*x
> >y = dsolve(eqn1,'x')
y = C1*exp(1/2*x^2)
To solve an initial value problem, say, equation (1.1) with

y(1) = 1,

use

> >y = dsolve(eqn1,'y(1)=1','x')

y =
1/exp(1/2)*exp(1/2*x^2)
or
> >inits = 'y(1)=1';
> >y = dsolve(eqn1,inits,'x')
y =
1/exp(1/2)*exp(1/2*x^2)
Now that we've solved the ODE, suppose we want to plot the solution to get a rough idea of its behavior.
We run immediately into two minor diculties: (1) our expression for
(.*, ./, .^), and (2)

y,

y(x)

as MATLAB returns it, is actually a symbol (a

obstacles is straightforward to x, using

vectorize().

isn't suited for array operations

symbolic object ).

The rst of these

For the second, we employ the useful command

eval(),

which evaluates or executes text strings that constitute valid MATLAB commands. Hence, we can use
> >x = linspace(0,1,20);
> >z = eval(vectorize(y));
> >plot(x,z)
Suppose we would like to evaluate our solution
workspace and then evaluate

y(x)

at the point

x = 2.

We need only dene

as

in the

y:

> >x=2;
> >eval(y)
On the other hand, we may want to nd the value of

for which

is equal to 7. We want to use

so our arguments should be strings. MATLAB's command for concatenating strings is

convert

into a string with the command

char(), and then we attach the string '=7'.

strcat().

solve(),

First, we

We have,

> >solve(strcat(char(y),'=7'))

1.1.2 Second and Higher Order Equations

Suppose we want to solve and plot the solution to the second order equation

y 00 (x) + 8y 0 (x) + 2y(x) = cos(x);

y(0) = 0, y 0 (0) = 1.

The following (more or less self-explanatory) MATLAB code suces:

(1.2)

> >eqn2 = 'D2y + 8*Dy + 2*y = cos(x)';

> >inits2 = 'y(0)=0, Dy(0)=1';
> >y=dsolve(eqn2,inits2,'x')
y =
1/65*cos(x)+8/65*sin(x)+(-1/130+53/1820*14^(1/2))*exp((-4+14^(1/2))*x)
-1/1820*(53+14^(1/2))*14^(1/2)*exp(-(4+14^(1/2))*x)
> >z = eval(vectorize(y));
> >plot(x,z)

1.1.3 Systems
Suppose we want to solve and plot solutions to the system of three ordinary dierential equations

x0 (t) =
y 0 (t) =

x(t) + 2y(t)
x(t) + z(t)

z 0 (t) = 4x(t) 4y(t)

z(t)

(1.3)

+5z(t).

First, to nd a general solution, we proceed as in Section 1.1.1, except with each equation now braced in its
own pair of (single) quotation marks:
> >[x,y,z]=dsolve('Dx=x+2*y-z','Dy=x+z','Dz=4*x-4*y+5*z')
x =
2*C1*exp(2*t)-2*C1*exp(t)-C2*exp(3*t)+2*C2*exp(2*t)-1/2*C3*exp(3*t)+1/2*C3*exp(t)
y =
2*C1*exp(t)-C1*exp(2*t)+C2*exp(3*t)-C2*exp(2*t)+1/2*C3*exp(3*t)-1/2*C3*exp(t)
z =
-4*C1*exp(2*t)+4*C1*exp(t)+4*C2*exp(3*t)-4*C2*exp(2*t)-C3*exp(t)+2*C3*exp(3*t)
(If you use MATLAB to check your work, keep in mind that its choice of constants C1, C2, and C3 probably
won't correspond with your own. For example, you might have
of exp(t) in the expression for

C = 2C1 + 1/2C3,

so that the coecients

are combined. Fortunately, there is no such ambiguity when initial values

are assigned.) Notice that since no independent variable was specied, MATLAB used its default,

t.

For an

example in which the independent variable is specied, see Section 1.1.1. To solve an initial value problem,
we simply dene a set of initial values and add them at the end of our

x(0) = 1, y(0) = 2,

and

z(0) = 3.

dsolve()

We have, then,

> >inits='x(0)=1,y(0)=2,z(0)=3';
> >[x,y,z]=dsolve('Dx=x+2*y-z','Dy=x+z','Dz=4*x-4*y+5*z',inits)
x =
6*exp(2*t)-5/2*exp(t)-5/2*exp(3*t)
y =
5/2*exp(t)-3*exp(2*t)+5/2*exp(3*t)
z =
-12*exp(2*t)+5*exp(t)+10*exp(3*t)
Finally, plotting this solution can be accomplished as in Section 6.1.2.
> >t=linspace(0,.5,25);
> >xx=eval(vectorize(x));
> >yy=eval(vectorize(y));
> >zz=eval(vectorize(z));
> >plot(t, xx, t, yy, t, zz)
The gure resulting from these commands is included as Figure 1.1.

command. Suppose we have

25

20

15

10

0.1

0.2

0.3

0.4

0.5

Figure 1.1: Solutions to equation (1.3).

1.2

Finding Numerical Solutions

MATLAB has a staggering array of tools for numerically solving ordinary dierential equations. We will
focus on the main two, the built-in functions

ode23 and ode45 , which implement RungeKutta 2nd/3rd-order

and RungeKutta 4th/5th-order, respectively.

1.2.1 First Order Equations

Suppose we want to numerically solve the rst order ordinary dierential equation
we write an M-le,

rstode.m, dening the function yprime

1
as the derivative of y .

y 0 (x) = xy2 + y .

First,

function yprime = rstode(x,y);

% FIRSTODE: Computes yprime = x*y^2+y
yprime = x*y^2 + y;
Notice that all

y 0 (x).

rstode.m

does is take values

x and y

and return the value at the point

(x, y) for the derivative

A script for solving the ODE and plotting its solutions now takes the following form:
> >xspan = [0,.5];
> >y0 = 1;
> >[x,y]=ode23('rstode',xspan,y0);
> >x
x =
0
0.0500
0.1000
0.1500
0.2000
0.2500
0.3000
0.3500
0.4000
0.4500
0.5000

1 Actually,

for an equation this simple, we don't have to work as hard as we're going to work here, but I'm giving you an

idea of things to come.

> >y
y =
1.0000
1.0526
1.1111
1.1765
1.2500
1.3333
1.4286
1.5384
1.6666
1.8181
1.9999
> >plot(x,y)
Notice that

xspan

x for which we're asking MATLAB to solve the equation, and y0 = 1

y(0) = 1. MATLAB solves the equation at discrete points and places the
x and y . These are then easily manipulated, for example to plot the solution

is the domain of

means we're taking the initial value

domain and range in vectors
with

plot(x,y).

Finally, observe that it is not the dierential equation itself that goes in the function

ode23,

but rather the derivatives of the dierential equation, which MATLAB assumes to be a rst order system.

1.2.2 Second Order Equations

The rst step in solving a second (or higher) order ordinary dierential equation in MATLAB is to write the
equation as a rst order system. As an example, let's return to equation (1.2) from Section 1.1.2. Taking
0
and y2 (x) = y (x), we have the system

y1 (x) = y(x)

y20 (x)

y10 (x) = y2 (x)

= 8y2 (x) 2y1 (x) + cos(x)

We now record the derivatives of this system as a function le. We have

function yprime = secondode(x,y);
%SECONDODE: Computes the derivatives of y_1 and y_2,
%as a colum vector
yprime = [y(2); -8*y(2)-2*y(1)+cos(x)];
Observe that

yprime

y1

is stored as y(1) and

y2

is stored as y(2), each of which are column vectors. Additionally,

is a column vector, as is evident from the semicolon following the rst appearance of

MATLAB input and output for solving this ODE is given below.
> >xspan = [0,.5];
> >y0 = [1;0];
> >[x,y]=ode23('secondode',xspan,y0);
> >[x,y]
ans =
0

1.0000

0.0001

1.0000

-0.0001

0.0005

1.0000

-0.0005

0.0025

1.0000

-0.0025

y(2).

The

0.0124

0.9999

-0.0118

0.0296

0.9996

-0.0263

0.0531

0.9988

-0.0433

0.0827

0.9972

-0.0605

0.1185

0.9948

-0.0765

0.1613

0.9912

-0.0904

0.2113

0.9864

-0.1016

0.2613

0.9811

-0.1092

0.3113

0.9755

-0.1143

0.3613

0.9697

-0.1179

0.4113

0.9637

-0.1205

0.4613

0.9576

-0.1227

0.5000

0.9529

-0.1241

In the nal expression above, the rst column tabulates x values, while the second and third columns tabulate
y1 and y2 (y(1) and (y(2))), or y and y 0 . Recall from Section 5 on matrices that for the matrix y(m, n),

refers to the row and

rows, one for each value of

refers to the column. Here,

x.

column. To refer to the entirety of

to plot

y1

versus

y2

we use

is a matrix with two columns (y1 and

y2 )

and 17

th row, 1st

To get, for instance, the 4th entry of the vector y(1), type y(4,1)4

y1 ,

use

y(:, 1),

plot(y(:,1),y(:,2)).

which MATLAB reads as

every

row, rst column. Thus

1.2.3 Solving Systems of ODE

Actually, we've already solved a system of ODE; the rst thing we did in the previous example was convert
our second order ODE into a rst order system.

As a second example, let's consider the famous Lorenz

equations, which have some properties of equations arising in atmospherics, and whose solution has long
served as an example for chaotic behavior. We have

dx
= x + y
dt
dy
= y xz
dt
dz
= bz + xy
dt
where for the purposes of this example, we will take

y(0) = 8,

and

z(0) = 27.

(1.4)
(1.5)

br,

= 10, b = 8/3,

(1.6)
and

r = 28,

as well as

The MATLAB M-le containing the Lorenz equations appears below.

function xprime = lorenz(t,x);

%LORENZ: Computes the derivatives involved in solving the
%Lorenz equations.
sig=10;
b=8/3;
r=28;
xprime=[-sig*x(1) + sig*x(2); -x(2) - x(1)*x(3); -b*x(3) + x(1)*x(2) - b*r];
If in the Command Window, we type
> >tspan=[0,50];
> >[t,x]=ode45('lorenz',tspan,x0);
> >plot(x(:,1),x(:,3))
the famous Lorenz strange attractor is sketched (see Figure 1.2.)

x(0) = 8,

The Lorenz Strange attractor

30

20

y(t)

10

10

20

30
20

15

10

10

15

20

x(t)

Figure 1.2: The Lorenz Strange Attractor

1.3

Plotting Direction Fields

A useful ODE technique involves plotting the

direction eld

of solutions to the ODE of interest. Briey,

consider the general ODE

dy
= f (x, y).
dx
f (x, y) is complicated, it may be impossible to nd a solution y(x) explicitly. At each point (x, y), however,
y(x): by the denition of derivative, the slope is simply f (x, y).
To plot a direction eld, we simply go to each point (x, y) in the xy plane (actually, a discrete grid of points)

If

it is certainly not dicult to nd the slope of

and draw in the slope of the tangent line at this point. We will require a few new MATLAB commands to
do this, so let's go through them one at a time. The rst is

meshgrid().

The command

> >[x,y]=meshgrid(a:k:b, c:j:d)

creates a set of points (x, y), where x lies between a and b, incremented by k, and y lies between c and
d, incremented by j. For example, [x,y]=meshgrid(1:.5:2,0:1:2) creates the set of nine points: (1, 0), (1, 1),
(1, 2), (1.5, 0), (1.5, 1), (1.5, 2), (2, 0), (2, 1), (2, 2). The second new command we will need is quiver(). Aptly
named, the command quiver(a,b,x,y) begins at the point (a, b) and plots an arrow in the direction of the

o
vector v = (x, y). For example, quiver(0,0,1,1) begins at the point (0, 0) and draws an arrow inclined 45
y

from the horizontal. Recalling that the vector v = (x, y) has slope
x , we make the useful observation that
dy
the command quiver(x ,y ,dx, dy) begins at the point (x, y) and draws a vector with slope
dx . Fortunately,
the last two commands we'll need are signicantly easier to master. The command
the dimensions of the matrix A, while

ones(m,n)

size(A)

simply returns

creates a matrix with m rows and n columns with a 1 in

0
each entry. Combining these, we nd that the direction eld for y (x) = x + sin(y) (given in Figure 1.3) can
be created by the following commands.
> >[x,y]=meshgrid(-3:.3:3,-2:.3:2);
> >dy = x + sin(y);
> >dx=ones(size(dy));
> >quiver(x,y,dx,dy)
The expression

dx=ones(size(dy))

may become more clear if you think of our ODE as

f (x, y)
dy
=
.
dx
1
7

2.5

1.5

0.5

0.5

1.5

2.5
3

Figure 1.3: Direction eld for

In this case,

dy = f (x, y) = x + sin(y)

and

y 0 (x) = x + sin(y).

dx = 1.

Looking at Figure 1.3, we observe that each arrow has a dierent length. Since we're only really concerned
with direction here, we might make all vectors unit length. For this, we use
> >[x,y]=meshgrid(-3:.3:3,-2:.3:2);
> >dy = x+sin(y);
> >dx = ones(size(dy));
> >dyu = dy./sqrt(dx.^2+dy.^2);
> >dxu = dx./sqrt(dx.^2+dy.^2);
> >quiver(x,y,dxu,dyu)
which produces Figure 1.4.
2.5

1.5

0.5

0.5

1.5

2.5
3

Figure 1.4: Normalized direction eld for

y 0 (x) = x + sin(y).

1.4

Plotting Direction Fields: A Second Example

As a second example of a direction eld, consider the ODE

dy
= x2 y.
dx
Proceeding almost exactly as above, we have
> >[x,y]=meshgrid(-3:.5:3,-3:.5:3);
> >dy=x.^2-y;
> >dx=ones(size(dy));
> >dyu=dy./sqrt(dy.^2+dx.^2);
> >dxu=dx./sqrt(dy.^2+dx.^2);
> >quiver(x,y,dxu,dyu)
We obtain Figure 1.5.
4

3
4

Figure 1.5: Normalized direction eld for

1.5

y 0 (x) = x2 y .

Plotting Phase Diagrams

A topic closely related to direction elds is

phase diagrams,

a critical tool in the study of systems of two

dierential equations. A rst order system of ordinary dierential equations is called autonomous if it can
be written in the form

dx
dt
dy
dt

= f (x, y)
= g(x, y).

That is, if the independent variablet, heredoes not explicitly appear on the right-hand side.

Such

systems are often too dicult to analyze exactly; however, we can obtain a great deal of information from
dy
dx
the following clever trick. Dividing
dt by dt , we have (forgoing even so much as a nod toward rigor)

dy
=
dx
or the

phase equation

dy
dt
dx
dt

g(x, y)
,
f (x, y)

g(x, y)
dy
=
.
dx
f (x, y)
9

For reasons I'll point out below, we refer to plots

versus

as phase diagrams.

The standard introductory example to phase diagrams involves the equations of a pendulum.
represents the angle with which the pendulum is displaced from the vertical at time
0
its angular velocity (that is, y(t) = x (t)), then Newton's second law asserts that

dx
= y
dt
dy
= gl
dt
where

g = 9.81m/s2

t,

and

y(t)

If

x(t)

represents

sin(x),

is approximately acceleration due to gravity at the earth's surface, and

is the length

of the pendulum (which we will take to be 1). (See Problem 7 in Section 4.10 of [NSS] for a discussion of
the derivation of this equation.) Our phase plane equation becomes

g
sin(x)
dy
=l
,
dx
y
from which we observe immediately that

y=0

(1.7)

may cause some trouble.

Following our remarks from Section 6.3, we can have MATLAB sketch in a direction eld for (1.7). The
following commands suce (though, for reasons discussed below, the resulting gure is disappointing):
> >[x,y]=meshgrid(-5:.4:5,-10:.51:10);
> >dy = -9.81*sin(x)./y;
> >dx = ones(size(dy));
> >dxu=dx./sqrt(dx.^2+dy.^2);
> >dyu=dy./sqrt(dx.^2+dy.^2);
> >quiver(x,y,dxu,dyu)
Notice that I've chosen my grid for
the slope for

y=0

so that

is never 0. Clearly, except at points

for which

sin(x)

is 0,

is innite, corresponding with a vertical line. Unfortunately, this simple analysis doesn't

yield quite as much information as we would like. The main problem is that our arrows all point toward the
right, as though the independent variable

x were marching steadily forward (as truly independent variables

t moves foward.

do). But what we really want here is to know what direction the solutions are moving as
For this, we will have to go back to our original system of dierential equations.

As usual, we will take up and right to be our positive directions and left and down to be our negative
directions. To determine the direction in which

x(t)

is moving as time increases all we have to study is its

dx
dt = y , so that if
must be increasing, or moving to the right, and if y < 0, then x(t) must be decreasing, or

change with respect to time, or its derivative. Glancing at our equations, we see that

y > 0,

then

x(t)

x is increasing, we don't need to change anything (recall that our problem was that
x to be increasing everywhere). If it's decreasing, that is, if y < 0, then we must change the sign
dx and dy , to turn the vector around. The upshot of all this is that we cannot lump the expression

moving to the left. If

we took
of both
for

dx

into the one for

dy.

Which is to say,

dx

can no longer be considered identically one.

2 The following

MATLAB code suces to give Figure 1.6.

> >[x,y]=meshgrid(-5:.4:5,-10:.51:10);
> >dy=-9.81*sin(x).*sign(y).^2;
> >dx = y.*sign(x).^2;
> >dxu=dx./sqrt(dx.^2+dy.^2);
> >dyu=dy./sqrt(dx.^2+dy.^2);
> >quiver(x,y,dxu,dyu)
The only new command here is

sign(), which returns a 1 for each matrix entry that is positive, a -1 for each
dx and

matrix entry that is negative, and a 0 for each matrix entry that is 0. In order to insure that the

10

15

10

10

15
6

Figure 1.6: Phase Diagram for Pendulum Equations.

dy

are both computed at each grid point

Hence, the occurence of

sign(x).^2

and

(x, y),

both

sign(y).^2,

and

must appear in each expression,

dy

and

dx.

which are both identically 1.

Observe that we can recover quite a bit of information from Figure 1.6. For example, notice that the
arrows form circles around the point

(0, 0).

Each circle corresponds with a steady swing of the pendulum,

the larger the circle, the greater the swing. We call the point
notice that the equilibrium point
physically?)
A nal word: the expression

(, 0)

(, 0)

and

phase diagram

(0, 0) a stable equilibirum

are both unstable.

arose because the angle

point. Alternatively,

(What do they correspond with

is also referred to as the phase of

the pendulum.

1.6

Phase Diagrams: A second example

As a second example, let's consider the phase diagram arising in the case of the LotkaVolterra predatorprey
model

x0 (t) =

ax(t) bx(t)y(t)

y 0 (t) = ry(t) + cx(t)y(t),

where

x(t)

typically presents the prey (the typical example is a rabbit) and

y(t)

represents the predator (a

wildcat, for example). For this system, the phase plane equation becomes

ry + cxy
dy
=
,
dx
ax bxy
which is too dicult to solve exactlyat least by routine methods. For the purposes of this example, we
will take

a = r = 2, b = c = 1.

First notice that our grid should avoid the points

x=0

and

y = 2.

The

following MATLAB script suces to produce Figure 1.7.

> >[x,y]=meshgrid(.1:.2:4,.1:.2:4);
> >dy=-2*y+x.*y;
> >dx=2*x-x.*y;
> >dyu=dy./sqrt(dy.^2+dx.^2);
> >dxu=dx./sqrt(dy.^2+dx.^2);
> >quiver(x,y,dxu,dyu)

2 Recall

that the vector oppositely directly from

(a, b)

is

(a, b):

11

both components must be multiplied by negative one.

4.5

3.5

2.5

1.5

0.5

0.5

0.5

1.5

2.5

3.5

4.5

Figure 1.7: Phase Diagram for Pendulum Equations.

1.7

Laplace Transforms

One of the most useful tools in mathematics is the Laplace transform. MATLAB has built-in routines for
computing both Laplace transforms and inverse Laplace transforms. For example, to compute the Laplace
2
transform of f (t) = t , type simply
> >syms t;
> >laplace(t^2)
In order to invert, say,

F (s) =

1
1+s , type

> >syms s;
> >ilaplace(1/(1+s))

2 Advanced ODE Topics

In Section 1 we covered the basic ODE topics for a generic introductory course. Here, we will discuss some
topics that will be of particular importance for the projects we'll consider in M442.

2.1

Parameters in ODE

It is often the case that we have some parameter in our dierential equation that needs to be determined
during the course of our analysis.

For example, in the ballistics project, you will need to consider the

coecient of air resistance, b, for an object projected through the air. For the case of linear air resistance, this
can be accomplished in a straightforward manner from an exact solution

y(t)

and appropriate experimental

data. For the case of nonlinear air resistance, however, an exact solution is cumbersome, and we are best
served by carrying out the analysis directly from the ODE. As an example, let's study how this approach
could be carried out in the case of linear air resistance.
First, let's recall what we're after. We are given that when dropped from a height
projectile takes

t = .95s

to hit the ground. Therefore, we want to nd the value of

y(0) = 4.06

m, the

so that if we solve the

initial value problem

d2 y
dt2

= g b dy
dt ,

y(0) = 4.06,
12

y 0 (0) = 0,

(2.1)

we obtain

y(.95) = 0.

In what follows we will consider

y(.95)

as a function of

and nd its zeros. As usual,

we begin by writing the derivatives of our function as an M-le:

function ydot=linsys(t,y);
%LINSYS: ODE for linear air resistance
g=9.81;
global b;
ydot=[y(2);-g-b*y(2)];
The only new command here is

global b,

which will allow the value of the parameter

to move from one

M-le to the next, and to the MATLAB command line as well. Notice that for script M-les, all variables
are global by denitionrunning a script M-le is equivalent to typing the commands one after the other
into the command line. Not so for function M-les. We now dene a second function

linheight.m :

function height=linheight(bb);
%LINHEIGHT: Solves ODE for linear air resistance
global b;
b = bb;
tspan = [0 .95];
y0 = [4.06 0];
[t,z]=ode23('linsys', tspan, y0);
height = z(length(t)); %Extracts z at t = .95 (nal value)
With these two M-les thus dened, we nd

simply by typing

> >fzero('linheight',1)
Though this is the most complicated combination of les we've seen, the only new command in

V . In this case, length(t)

t = .95.

which gives the number of elements in the vector

of

t,

2.2

so that

z(length(t))

is the value of

at

length(V),

is the index of the last component

Boundary Value Problems

For various reasons of arguable merit most introductory courses on ordinary dierential equations focus
primarily on initial value problems (IVP's).

Another class of ODE's that often arise in applications are

boundary value problems (BVP's). Again, let's look to the model of linear air resistance for an example. In
the Ballistics project, we are told that when red straight up from a height of
2.13 seconds to hit the groundwhich is to say,
problem

where we think of the

y(2.13) = 0.

y(0) = .39m,

the darts take

Consequently, we have the boundary value

dy
d2 y
y(0) = .39,
y(2.13) = 0,
= g b ,
dt2
dt
points t = 0 and t = 2.13 as the endpoints, or boundaries,

(2.2)
of the domain we are

interested in. We could solve this particular equation by obtaining a general solution for the ODE and using

y(0)

and

y(2.13)

to evaluate the constants of integration (which is what you should have done for the linear

air resistance part of the project), but the point here is to study how we could solve (2.2) with MATLAB.
The rst step in this analysis is again to write (2.2) as a rst order system, and to write the right hand
side of this system as a function le. Fortunately, this information has already been stored as
Section 2.1 (you need only alter it by inserting the value you found in Section 2.1 for
boundary conditions as a very simple M-le:
function res=bc(ya,yb)
%BC: Evaluates the residue of the boundary condition
res=[ya(1)-.39;yb(1)];

13

b).

linsys.m

from

Next we write the

It should be clear that by

residue

we mean the left hand side of the boundary condition after it has been set

to zero. We now solve the BVP (2.2) with the commands

> >sol=bvpinit([0 .25 .5 .75 1 1.25 1.5 1.75 2 2.13],[1,0]);
> >sol=bvp4c(@linsys,@bc,sol);
> >sol.y
ans =
Columns 1 through 7
0.3900

2.8036

4.4619

5.4160

5.7133

5.3985

4.5127

11.2370

8.1086

5.1918

2.4722

-0.0636

-2.4279

-4.6324

Columns 8 through 10
3.0947

1.1803

-6.6878

-8.6043

Observe that

sol.y

0
-9.5491

contains values of

and

y0

at each

t-value

specied in the rst brackets of

bvpinit.

One

v,

with

value you might nd interesting above is 11.2370, from the rst column. This is the initial velocity,
which the projectile is launched, assuming linear damping.

2.3

Event Location

A MATLAB tool that will save us a lot of work in the nonlinear part of the ballistics project is

event location.

Typically, the ODE solver in MATLAB terminates after solving the ODE over a specied domain of the
independent variable (xspan=[0,.5] above, where the independent variable is

x).

In applications, however,

we often would like to stop the solution at a particular value of the dependent variable (for example, when
a pendulum reaches the peak of its arc, or when a population crosses some threshhold value). For example,
in the ballistics project, we are interested in nding the value of

y(t) = 0when

x(t)

(the distance) at the time

for which

the dart strikes the ground. In order to give you the idea of how event location works, let's

work through the case you did by hand: linear damping. Here, you have the system of equations,

y 00 (t) = g by 0 (t);
x00 (t) =
bx0 (t);
where now

y(0) = .18

y(0) = .18; y 0 (0) = v sin

x(0) = 0; x0 (0) = v cos

(2.3)
(2.4)

indicates that the object has been red from a platform .18 meters o the ground,

is the angle of inclination with which the object was red, and

is the initial velocity with which the object

was launched. Suppose our goal is to nd the distance the object travels prior to hitting the ground. As
usual, the rst step consists in writing (2.4) as a rst order system. We can do this with the substitutions
z1 = y , z2 = x, z3 = y 0 , and z4 = x0 , which gives

z10 = z3
z20 = z4

z30 = g
z40 = bz4

bz3

The event we will be looking for is the object's hitting the ground, or

y(0) 6= 0,

the rst time for which

y(t) = 0

y(t) = 0.

Notice that so long as

will correspond to the object's hitting the ground. In order to be

a bit more general, however, we will also specify the direction we would like the object to be goingdown.

14

As usual, we begin by writing the right-hand side of our system as a MATLAB function M-le, in this
case

linproj.m.

function zprime = linproj(t,z);

%PROJ: ODE for projectile motion with linear
%air resistance.
g=9.81; %Specify approximate gravitational constant
b=.28; %Representative value
zprime=[z(3);z(4);-g-b*z(3);-b*z(4)];
Additionally, we now dene an

events

function that species what event we want MATLAB to look for and

what MATLAB should do when it nds the event.

function [lookfor,stop,direction] = linevent(t,z);
%LINEVENT: Contains the event we are looking for.
%In this case, z(1) = 0 (hitting ground).
lookfor = z(1); %Sets this to 0
stop = 1; %Stop when event is located
direction = -1; %Specify downward direction
In

linevent.m,

y(t) = 0).

the line

lookfor=z(1)

species that MATLAB should look for the event

(If we wanted to look for the event

y(t) = 1,

z(1) = 0

(that is,

lookfor=z(1) -1.) The line stop=1

the command direction=-1 instructs

we would use

instructs MATLAB to stop solving when the event is located, and

0
MATLAB to only accept events for which y(2) (that is, y ) is negative.

We can now solve the ODE up until the time our projectile strikes the ground with the following commands
issued in the Command Window:
> >options=odeset('Events',@linevent)
> >z0=[.18;0;5;10];
> >[t,z,te,ze,ie]=ode45(@linode,[0 10],z0,options)
Here,

z0 is a vector of initial data (though the velocities don't represent any particular angle).

The command

oder45() returns a vector of times t, a matrix of dependent variables z , the time at which the event occurred,
te, the values of z when the event occurred, ze, and nally the index when the event occurred, ie.

15

Index
boundary value problems, 13
direction elds, 7
dsolve, 1
eval, 2
event location, 14
global, 13
inverse laplace, 12
laplace, 12
Laplace transforms, 12
length(), 13
meshgrid, 7
ode, 4
ones(), 7
parameters in ODE, 12
phase diagrams, 9
quiver, 7
sign, 10
size(), 7
vectorize(), 2

16