MATLAB: Curve fitting to a sinusoidal function

curve fittingsinusoidal curve

I have a series of data points that are governed by a sinusoidal function.
I want to fit, plot and generate a sinusoidal function to these data points.
I do not wish to fit an nth degree polynomial to this no matter how close it is to the sinusoidal function.
I understand that there is no standard tool in the toolbox that does this. I have looked at numerous and plenty of old threads and internet posts. None of the answers help me.
Please take into account that I am new to Matlab and can only curve fit very basic data points.
What I therefore need is an exact and step by step guide in how to fit a sine curve to data points.
Please assist.

Best Answer

Here’s my suggested solution, using only core MATLAB functions:
yu = max(y);
yl = min(y);
yr = (yu-yl);                               % Range of ‘y’
yz = y-yu+(yr/2);
zx = x(yz .* circshift(yz,[0 1]) <= 0);     % Find zero-crossings
per = 2*mean(diff(zx));                     % Estimate period
ym = mean(y);                               % Estimate offset
fit = @(b,x)  b(1).*(sin(2*pi*x./b(2) + 2*pi/b(3))) + b(4);    % Function to fit
fcn = @(b) sum((fit(b,x) - y).^2);                              % Least-Squares cost function
s = fminsearch(fcn, [yr;  per;  -1;  ym])                       % Minimise Least-Squares
xp = linspace(min(x),max(x));
figure(1)
plot(x,y,'b',  xp,fit(s,xp), 'r')
grid
The elements of output parameter vector, s ( b in the function ) are:
s(1): sine wave amplitude (in units of y)
s(2): period (in units of x)
s(3): phase (phase is s(2)/(2*s(3)) in units of x)
s(4): offset (in units of y)
It provides a good fit.
Related Question