Dynamical Systems Toolbox

Bifurcation analysis of dynamical systems. Integration of AUTO bifurcation software into MATLAB.

Description

**Background**

This is a MATLAB version of AUTO, where we have integrated AUTO into MATLAB via mex functions.
This toolbox is aimed at researchers familiar with AUTO, but also engineers that would like to
apply these techniques. One of the biggest reasons why Dynamical Systems Theory is not being
applied widely in an engineering context, is mainly due to the lack of bifurcation software
that integrates with relative ease with existing toolsets. We therefore tried to address this
issue by incorporating AUTO into MATLAB, and thus the Dynamical Sytems Toolbox was built.
We hope that it would be useful teaching tool and can help popularise the methods amongst
the engineering community.

Ample examples are also needed for a person new to the field, hence more aerospace examples
will follow in future releases.At this stage we are still in the process of adding several
engineering examples to the toolbox. Feel free to develop some examples for inclusion into
the toolbox. There are template files that you can use for inclusion of your own examples.

**Souce Control**

Source files are controlled on github at

https://github.com/ecoetzee/Dynamical-Systems-Toolbox

**System Requirements**

1. MATLAB R2009A or higher
2. Intel Visual Fortran 9.1 or higher for compiling on Windows, if needed.
3. GCC 4.3.1 or higher for compiling on Linux.

**Authors**

This toolbox was written by Etienne Coetzee, Phani Thota and James Rankin from the
University of Bristol. Obviously, credit must also be given to the authors of
AUTO, Esebius Doedel et al.

**Main features**

1. Look and feel of MATLAB.
2. Extensive use of objects.
3. Can be run in the new mode, or still with all the old AUTO files (.c,.7,.8.9) familiar
    to the user.
4. Robust error checking.
5. Additional outputs can be detected and also passed out to MATLAB variables.
6. Any of the MATLAB toolsets can be used, i.e. the Symbolic toolbox, Simulink etc.
7. Similar notations to that of AUTO. A person familiar with AUTO should find it
    straightforward to pick up the new toolsets.
8. Also works with the student version of MATLAB.
9. Ample documentation.
10. Templates files for people willing to contribute their own examples for inclusion
    into the demos.

**Drawbacks**

1. Limit Cycles are at least an order of magnitude slower. We had to make a trade-off
    between robustness and speed. We therefore decided that if we want to popularise the methods,
    then the code should work, and people should not have to struggle with decoding it.
2. No ample enginering examples yet.

**Installation Instructions**

To install the toolbox follow these steps:

1. Download the toolbox and unzip.
2. Open MATLAB and change to the directory where the toolbox was unzipped.
3. Run the program installdynasys.m; A user interface will appear.
4. If you have admin rights keep the default values and install. The toolbox will be
    installed in the MATLAB installation directory.
5. If you do not have admin rights, install the toolbox to a directory where you have
    access rights. A startup.m file will be created in this directory.
6. Close MATLAB, and restart.
7. Type dynasysroot and dynasyshelproot at the command line. If these commands are
    working, it should indicate where the toolbox components were installed. If not,
    something has gone wrong. Check that the paths are correctly defined.
8. The Dynamical Systems Toolbox should appear on the menu. If not, either the paths
    were not defined correctly, or the info.xml file in the **$dynasysroot/toolbox/dynasys**
    directory has the wrong information on line 10. Add the correct path to the documentation
    directory **$dynasysdocroot/toolbox/dynasys**.
9. Close MATLAB and restart.

**Restrictions**

1. We have only managed to compile on Windows with Intel Fortran 9.1 or higher. Also now
    possible to use on Linux with gcc 4.3 or higher.
2. I am not able to make many updates because I am trying to finish my PhD, hence assume
    that the software will not be frequently updated.

**Additional Resources**

The following link provides more information on aerospace applications at the
University of Bristol.

http://seis.bris.ac.uk/~ec1099/

Acknowledgements

The author wishes to acknowledge the following in the creation of this submission:
Figure Management Utilities, Manage and Dock Figures into Group, Flight Visualization

• MATLAB release: MATLAB 7.8 (R2009a)
• Other requirements: Visual Fortran 9.1 for compiling on Windows XP Gcc 4.3.1 for compiling on Linux

[Mr Smart]

 

[Olexander Zhytenko]

Hello
Where it is possible to find in the format of PDf?

[Etienne Coetzee]

HI Olexander.

I am not sure what the question is, but I am assuming that you are looking for help files in pdf format. The help has several links to PDF documents and web-sites on the starting page. Please clarify if this is not what you are asking for.

Etienne

[Lyuboslav Petrov]

Dear Etienne,

Could you give a hint for the installation of this clearly great toolbox?

I did run the installation by:
1. Uncompressing the folder, and adding it to the Matlab path with all subfolders.
2. Changed the startup.m file to have the correct paths for my machine.
3. Ran the installdynasys.m file by trying to install in the matlab/toolbox root, but received the following error "No appropriate method, property, or field fFigureClient for class
com.mathworks.hg.peer.HG1FigurePeer". Subsequently, tried to install at the current root, which was added to the path, but same error occurs.

Thanks!
Lubo

[Etienne Coetzee]

Hi Lubo

I have not tested the software with versions later than 2011a. It may be due to this, so I guess there are new GUI features that may need to be updated.

In this case you can copy the files directly without the GUI. There are two directories to copy. Copy

1. 'dynasys\toolbox\dynasys' to [matlabroot,'\toolbox\dynasys']
2. 'dynasys\help\toolbox\dynasys' to
[docroot,'\toolbox\dynasys']

Make sure that the directories under these directories are added to the path.

Make sure the info.xml file in the first installation directory (step 1) points to the correct help location of step 2.

The toolbox should appear on the start menu of Matlab. Run the demos to check if it is working. You may have to recompile the fortran source code if you are on a very new Matlab version. I am not sure, but I have seen some posts about precompiled mex files that were compiled with intel fortran 9 in previous versions of Matlab not working with the latest version 2012a. I cannot confirm this though.

You can also read the DST_Getting_Started.pdf file in the zip file.