Multiple initial conditions differential equations

Is there a way to solve multiple initial conditions in the same ode solver?

[Zach]

To be more specific I have a bunch of points consisting of x and y coordinates. Each point is considered an agent. And each agent has it's x and y coordinates determined by it's own x and y direction DE. I have this set up in a GUI where the students select the number of agents and the two DE's. I was looking for a way to only use one x array and one y array to solve all the different point (agents) for the same time step. If this is two vague I can try and explain it more clearly.

Answer 1

[Matt Tearle]

There's no immediate way to do this (AFAIK). Some possible workarounds would be to make a larger system of equations (ie just stack the x-y pairs into one big vector), or to run multiple times and specify the time points where you want the solution. In the latter case, you could either do this for all runs or for the first and then use the times returned for that run as inputs for the remaining runs.

(Dumb question: is there any reason they have to be at the same time points? If, for example, you're just plotting the results, would you even notice the time points?)

[Zach]

thanks! and the reason for all having the same time points is cause i'm plotting each agent after every time step. I think I'm slowly working my way towards something.

[Matt Tearle]

OK, if you want it simultaneously, maybe you could go with the first approach of making it a big system of (repeated) equations.