ECE 445S Real-Time Digital Signal Processing Lab - Matlab Help

Some of the problems will require to use a computer tool, such as Matlab, to solve it.

For UT Austin students, the most convenient option for accessing Matlab is to

Download and install/update the full version of MATLAB R2017a or later on your laptop using the UT site license (i.e. no cost to you):
- Follow the directions for student licensing.
- Request a MathWorks account as part of the download process and follow the instructions on account creation directly from the email
- When installing/updating MATLAB, please install at least the following MATLAB components:
  - Simulink, Simulink Coder, and all other Simulink extensions
  - Audio, Communications, DSP System, Embedded Coder, Image Processing, Matlab Coder, Signal Processing, Statistics & Machine Learning, and System Identification toolboxes.
Directions to activate your MATLAB license.

Here are other options to accessing MATLAB:

Buy the Matlab student edition for your local computer ($99)
Run Matlab on a remote computer using an Xwindows interface
Run the Mathscript environment in the LabVIEW Real-Time Module
Run GNU Octave
Convert Matlab code to run in Python using numpy and scipy extensions

The Mathscript environment in LabVIEW implements core functions in Matlab and a few signal processing functions. These functions will be almost all you'll need for the lecture and lab components for this course. For GNU Octave, please see the footnote on page viii of the JSK book.

Helpful Slides and Tutorials

Please see locally developed materials to help you use Matlab in ECE 445S:

Brian L. Evans, "Common Signals in Matlab", which provides Matlab code to define/plot basic signals in continuous/discrete time
Brian L. Evans, "Introduction to Computation in Matlab", Appendix D in the ECE 445S Course Reader

Here are excellent Matlab tutorials:

"Learning MATLAB", The MathWorks Inc.

Software Receiver Design

Please add the Matlab functions and scripts that come with the Software Receiver Design textbook on your Matlab search path. The files are available from the SRD - MatlabFiles directory in the zip file.

To add a directory of Matlab functions to the Matlab search path, please use

addpath(directory);

The directory would be enclosed in single quotes, e.g.

addpath('C:\Documents and Settings\SANL\My Documents\SRD-MatlabFiles');

See help path for more information.

The following additional Matlab commands may be useful:

cd: change directories (without an argument, it prints the working directory)
dir: lists the contents of the current working directory
pwd: prints working directory

Running Matlab Remotely

Another option for running Matlab remotely is to install

PuTTY, terminal emulator for remote login, and
Xming, X windows emulator.

When running PuTTY within X windows, it is helpful to enable forwarding of X windows settings.

Linux workstations available for remote login

Once logged into a remote workstation, here are the commands to run Matlab:

module load matlab
matlab &

Last updated 09/01/24. Send comments to (Mailbox)

bevans@ece.utexas.edu