MATLAB Applications to Aerospace Engineering

At the end of this course, the students should be able to: 1. use MATLAB as a calculator both for scalars and matrices; 2. use elementary functions and define variables, and construct simple scripts and functions; 3. use control structures (if-statements, for- and while-loops) in simple examples; 4. visualise the results of computations and data sets by self-explaining graphics; and 5. use the help system to learn new functions.

The name MATLAB is an acronym for MATrix LABoratory. MATLAB was written originally to provide easy access to matrix software developed by the LINPACK (linear system package) and EISPACK (Eigen system package) projects. MATLAB integrates computation, visualisation, programing environment and it has sophisticated data structures, contains built-in editing and debugging tools, and supports object-oriented programming. These factors make MATLAB an excellent tool for teaching and research. MATLAB has many advantages compared to conventional computer languages such as C, FORTRAN which are employed for solving technical problems. It is also an interactive system whose basic data element is an array that does not require dimensioning. Engineering students in our universities can use the software package as a standard tool to meet the 21st century industry worldwide needs. Students will use MATLAB’s powerful built-in routines that are cable of enabling a very wide variety of computations and easy-to-use graphic commands capable of making the visualisation of results immediately available. Students need to be conversant with the toolboxes required for signal processing, symbolic computation, control theory, simulation, optimisation and several other fields of applied science and engineering.