Complex numbers in MATLAB - Mini Project: Build & Apply

Working with Complex Numbers in MATLAB

📖 Scenario: You are working on a simple electrical engineering problem where voltages and currents are represented as complex numbers. You need to create and manipulate complex numbers in MATLAB to find their magnitudes and phases.

🎯 Goal: Build a MATLAB script that creates complex numbers, calculates their magnitudes and phases, and displays the results.

📋 What You'll Learn

Create complex numbers using real and imaginary parts

Calculate magnitude using MATLAB's abs function

Calculate phase (angle) using MATLAB's angle function

Display results clearly using disp

💡 Why This Matters

🌍 Real World

Complex numbers are used in electrical engineering to represent voltages and currents that have both magnitude and phase.

💼 Career

Understanding complex numbers and how to manipulate them in MATLAB is important for engineers working with signals, circuits, and control systems.

1

Create complex numbers

Create two complex numbers called z1 and z2 with these exact values: z1 = 3 + 4i and z2 = 1 - 2i.

MATLAB

% Create complex numbers z1 and z2
% Your code here

Need a hint?

Use i to represent the imaginary unit in MATLAB.

2

Calculate magnitudes

Create two variables called mag1 and mag2 that store the magnitudes of z1 and z2 using the abs function.

MATLAB

z1 = 3 + 4i;
z2 = 1 - 2i;
% Calculate magnitudes mag1 and mag2
% Your code here

Need a hint?

Use abs(z) to get the magnitude of a complex number z.

3

Calculate phases

Create two variables called phase1 and phase2 that store the phases (angles) of z1 and z2 using the angle function.

MATLAB

z1 = 3 + 4i;
z2 = 1 - 2i;
mag1 = abs(z1);
mag2 = abs(z2);
% Calculate phases phase1 and phase2
% Your code here

Need a hint?

Use angle(z) to get the phase of a complex number z.

4

Display results

Use disp to print the magnitudes and phases of z1 and z2 with clear messages exactly as shown:
"Magnitude of z1: " followed by mag1
"Phase of z1: " followed by phase1
"Magnitude of z2: " followed by mag2
"Phase of z2: " followed by phase2.

MATLAB

z1 = 3 + 4i;
z2 = 1 - 2i;
mag1 = abs(z1);
mag2 = abs(z2);
phase1 = angle(z1);
phase2 = angle(z2);
% Display magnitudes and phases
% Your code here

Need a hint?

Use disp(['text', num2str(value)]) to display text and numbers together.