UNIVERSIDAD DE LA SALLE

Signals Analysis – 1st individual quick project: LTI systems and convolution

0. Due date:
Thursday March 13th, 11:55 PM.

1. Description:
In this first project you will predict the temperature inside a passive structure (a house) using the outside temperature, and
assuming that the house is an LTI system. You should also determine how accurate your predictor is.

2. Available information:
You should use the information given below to solve the problem:
• The file temps.mat contains three variables: t, containing the time values (sampling was performed each 192 sec.);
ExtTemp, which hold the values (in Celsius) for the outside temperature for the month of December 2013; and the variable
IntTemp, corresponding to the sampled values of the internal temperature of the house (in Celsius), over the same time
period.
• Assume that, using a particular method, you were able to obtain an expression for the impulse response of the house (your
system in this case):

1 −t /τ
h(t) = e u(t) (Eq. 1)
τ
where τ corresponds to the time constant of the system.

2. To do:
You have to implement your predictor using the information given below. Notice that the time constant of the system, τ, is not
known and you will have to choose it so as to ensure an accurate prediction; to do so you should find the best value by
comparing the real temperature (given in the variable IntTemp) and the result of your prediction, using some error criterion.

3. Submission process:
On the corresponding link of the Moodle platform, each student must submit:
• 1 working Matlab (.m) file, implementing the solution to the problem. The file must be properly commented to allow easy
interpretation of what has been done.
• 1 report of no more than 3 pages (Font: Arial; Size: 10; Margins: 3x3x3 cm; Spacing: single), following these minimum
requirements:
o It should be organized, clear and concise.
o It should explain in detail how the predictor was implemented, explaining the different alternatives considered and
justifying your final choice.
o It should discuss the procedure followed to determine the most adequate time constant for the system, and show the
corresponding chosen value. You have to demonstrate in this section that the chosen value is indeed the most
adequate.
o Include one graph showing the accuracy (using the error criterion of your choice) of your predictor (in the y-axis) vs.
the different τ values (in the x-axis). The computation of this plot must be included as part of the code submitted in
the Matlab file.

4. Grading:
Three items will be used for grading this project:
• Solution to the problem:
o First review (25% of final grade): in this review each student will discuss with the professor the current state of the
project, the result of his/her research and possible solutions considered up to this point.
Date: February 28th (groups 04 and 05), March 3rd (groups 01 and 02) during Lab session.
o Final submission (25% of final grade): corresponding to the evaluation of the files submitted to the Moodle platform.
• Final discussion (50% of final grade): where each student will discuss with the professor the final implementation and the
contents of the report.
Date: March 14th (groups 04 and 05), March 17th (groups 01 and 02) during Lab session.

Miguel Sotaquirá – Signals Analysis – 2014-I – Feb/18/2014