Given acceleration data and the corresponding time, how can I find the position and velocity in MATLAB? -

i given data in excel spreadsheet. after importing velocity = cumtrapz(t,y) , position = cumtrapz(velocity)?

it correct if car starts 0 @ distance zero. otherwise need have initial velocity there well. notice here solving the equation a = f(t) = dv/dt , further a = d^2s/dt^2 identifying v ds/dt. solving system of ordinary differential equations:

a = dv/dt v = ds/dt 

this can done in few ways. eg euler forward.

v'(t) = (v(t+h)-v(t))/h <=> v(t+h) = hv'(t)+y(t) 

where derivate given, means a = a(t). iteration initialized initial condition v(0), must given.

when know v go s. use again euler forward as,

s'(t) = (s(t+h)-s(t))/h <=> s(t+h) = hs'(t)+s(t) 

where must know initial condition s(0). if v(0) = s(0) = 0. euler forward o(h) algorithm, knowing trick of solving differential equations step step doing transformation s'(t) = v(t) possible better. runge-kutta method available you. , method use, cumtrapz, o(h^2) method. little more theory custom in stackoverflow, helpful. there matrix solution second order boundary value problems, called finite differance method, 1 slighly more advanced. further reading, start with

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/numerical_methods_for_ordinary_differential_equations