MATLAB: Nonlinear fitting of a numerical solution of a PDE

Question

I need to perform nonlinear fitting of a numerical solution of a PDE to experimental data, but I can't use the nlinfit function, since it requires an analytical expression, whereas I have a numerical solution of a PDE. What kind of command should I use in this case for parameter estimation through nonlinear fitting?

Answer 1

I don't understand what you are asking. I assume that you have a model of a PDE solution, and that your model has a few parameters. nlinfit requires only that your modelfun argument be "...a function handle. modelfun must accept two input arguments, a coefficient vector and an array X—in that order—and return a vector of fitted response values." There is nothing in that description that requires an analytic expression for your nonlinear model function.

Alan Weiss

MATLAB mathematical toolbox documentation