MATLAB

This book is not good at explaining linear algebra or differential equations. Gilbert Strang has a much better book and many math books that are specific to areas of applied math typically explain both concepts. Be prepared to use some reference books if your prof. requires this text.

The authors wrote this book for students who are new to linear algebra and differential equations. However, the book is anything but introductory. As hard as I tried, I could hardly follow the book. The explanations and examples are not very enlightening at all. The book tries to teach students how to play with MatLab, which is a bad move. I could read and type the Matlab code from the book, but I didn't learn to solve the problems by hand... Not from this book.

I used the text in a Calculus 3 course for intro to DiffEq and LinAlg. While taking the class and using this text, I ended up more confused than I started. Being new to the material, the text uses to much mathematical notation for someone not acustomed to theory or different mathematical notation. In addition, the text does not provide enough examples to help digest the material. On the plus side, the book does do a good job of incorporating basic MATLAB skills, but lacks in giving any direction on how to use MATLAB. I noticed in someone else's review they suggested Gilbert Strang's Linear Algebra book...I would also; the book is much more clear on the linear algebra side and is very easy to understand and interpret. For the differential equation side, I would highly recommend Boyce/DiPrima.

I have to say this is a strange book on Kalman filtering - the structure of the book is probably as incoherent as the presentation. It is not a good book for a student wishing to learn Kalman Filtering and how to adapt it to practical problems.

I think the authors assume that the readers all know about Kalman filters and as far as introductions are concerned, only need to know the history of it. Indeed it is not until chapter 4.2 that you get any acknowledgement of the actual filter the rest of the book is peripheral information that would apply if you were a seasoned Kalman Filter expert.

The weird thing is that anyone with a detailed knowledge of Kalman Filtering would certainly know everything there was to know about matrix algebra, and so Appendix B has a tutorial or refresher on matrix forms - weird.

The notation also appears non standard and there are many sections where equation variables are not well explained and the examples very obsure and the premable non existent.

This is not a good book for any one wishing to either familiarise themselves with Kalman filtering - there is some good information in this but it is not a text book by any stretch of the imagination.

This book is difficult to understand due to the lack of simple examples to illustrate keep points as they are introduced.

There are a few examples in each chapter, however the authors skip too many steps and make you constantly flip around in the book to review previous examples upon which he bases the new examples. The end result is just wasteful trashing by the student.

This is a good book, but it does't have enough textbook examples to be used for an intro class in Kalam filtering.

Maybe this book would be useful as a secondary reference for a person that already knows Kalman filtering.

I have been working with "Kalman Fitering, ... Using Matlab",
2nd Edition, for several weeks, and I must tell you it is by far the
most useful text on the subject.