LSODE Question - External Inputs?

[damian.harty]

O Learned Denizens,

I'm trying to use Octave to reproduce calculations I've done elsewhere, with
a global objective of moving away from Excel and Simulink over time.

The particular problem I'm interested in for now is vehicle ride modelling -
my US readers will note that my spelling is British, as am I - which I have
previously performed with some success in both Excel and Simulink. If I
start with a nice simple system with one degree-of-freedom and linear
characteristics, I can write

function xdot = f (x, t)
  m = 100; % kg
  k = 10000; % N/m
  c = 200; % Ns/m
  xdot(1) = x(2);
  xdot(2) =  -k/m*x(1)-c/m*x(2);
endfunction

...and then use lsode to integrate it:

endtime=4.0;
srate=100;
x0 = [0.1; 0];
t = linspace (0, endtime, srate*endtime)';
x = lsode ("xdot", x0, t);

If I use non-zero initial conditions I get the faimliar damped response -
this would be a pretty poor car with these parameters but that's neither
here nor there.

So far, so good.

Now, what I want to is to introduce an excitation function at the base. I
have some function u(t) that is known in advance. I can presume that its
derivative, udot(t) will also be known in advance (or at least calculated).

But what I can't really see is how to pass these two vectors into the
function "xdot". (Actually it ought to be clear I can't work out how to pass
anything into xdot without lsode having a sulk. I want to declare m, k and c
externally and have them picked up inside xdot but can't work out how to do
that, either)

If I write my equations out on paper they become

xdot_1(t) = x_2(t)
xdot_2(t) = -k/m*( x_1(t) - u(t) ) - c/m*( x_2(t) - udot(t) )

but I'm clearly missing something in terms of how to formulate it inside the
xdot function in Octave to subtract the right value of u at any moment in
time as xdot contains no sense of time as far as I can see.

If anyone has approached this type of problem in Octave and can give me some
pointers I would be most grateful - I'm sure it can be done but am equally
sure I am just missing something simple. Should I be using DASSL or ode45,
for example?

Damian Harty
Senior Research Fellow - Vehicle & System Dynamics
Coventry University
UK

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