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Solution Methods for IVPs: The Midpoint Method

The Midpoint Method

Similar to Heun’s method, the midpoint method provides a slight modification to both the implicit and explicit Euler methods. Consider the following IVP:

    \[\frac{\mathrm{d}x}{\mathrm{d}t}=F(x,t)\]


Assuming that the value of the dependent variable x (say x_i) is known at an initial value t_i, then, we have:

    \[\int_{x_i}^{x_{i+1}}\!\frac{\mathrm{d}x}{\mathrm{d}t}\,\mathrm{d}t=\int_{t_i}^{t_{i+1}}\!F(x,t)\,\mathrm{d}t\]


Therefore:

    \[x_{i+1}-x_i=\int_{t_i}^{t_{i+1}}\!F(x,t)\,\mathrm{d}t\]


If the midpoint rule of the rectangle method of numerical integration is used for the right-hand side with one interval we obtain:

    \[x_{i+1}-x_i=hF\left(\frac{x_{i+1}+x_i}{2},\frac{t_{i+1}+t_{i}}{2}\right)+\mathcal{O}(h^3)\]


where the error term is inherited from the use of I_2 in the rectangle rule. Therefore an estimate for x_{i+1} is given by:

    \[x_{i+1}=x_i+hF\left(\frac{x_{i+1}+x_i}{2},\frac{t_{i+1}+t_{i}}{2}\right)+\mathcal{O}(h^3)\]


Using this estimate, the local truncation error is thus proportional to the cube of the step size. If the errors from each interval are added together, with n=\frac{L}{h} being the number of intervals and L the total length t_n-t_0, then, the total error is:

    \[E=\mathcal{O}(h^3) \frac{L}{h}=\mathcal{O}(h^2)\]


which is similar to Heun’s method but better than both the implicit and explicit Euler methods. Note that the midpoint method is essentially a slight modification to the Euler’s method in which the slope used to calculate the value of x_{i+1} at the next time point is used as the slope at the average point x_{i+1/2}=\frac{x_{i+1}+x_i}{2}. The midpoint method can be implemented in two ways. One way is to use the slope at x_i to calculate an initial estimate x_{i+1/2}^{(0)}. Then, the estimate for x_{i+1} would be calculated based on the slope at x_{i+1/2}^{(0)}. Alternatively, the Newton-Raphson method or the fixed-point iteration method can be used to solve directly for x_{i+1}. We will only adopt the first way. The following Mathematica code presents a procedure to utilize the midpoint method. The procedure is essentially similar to the ones presented in the Euler methods except for the step to calculate the new estimate x_{i+1}.

View Mathematica Code
MidPointMethod[fp_, x0_, h_, t0_, tmax_] := 
(n = (tmax - t0)/h + 1;
  xtable = Table[0, {i, 1, n}];
  xtable[[1]] = x0;
  Do[xi120 = xtable[[i - 1]] + h/2*fp[xtable[[i - 1]], t0 + (i - 2) h]; 
   xtable[[i]] = xtable[[i - 1]] + h (fp[xi120, t0 + (i - 1-1/2) h]), {i, 2, n}];
  Data = Table[{t0 + (i - 1)*h, xtable[[i]]}, {i, 1, n}];
  Data)

View Python Code
def MidPointMethod(fp, x0, h, t0, tmax):
  n = int((tmax - t0)/h + 1)
  xtable = [0 for i in range(n)]
  xtable[0] = x0
  for i in range(1,n):
    xi120 = xtable[i - 1] + h/2*fp(xtable[i - 1], t0 + (i - 1)*h)
    xtable[i] =  xtable[i - 1] + h*(fp(xi120, t0 + (i - 1/2)*h))
  Data = [[t0 + i*h, xtable[i]] for i in range(n)]
  return Data
Example

Solve Example 4 above using the midpoint method.

Solution

The midpoint method is implemented by first assuming an estimate for x_{i+1/2}^{(0)} based on the explicit Euler method:

    \[x_{i+1/2}^{(0)}=x_i+\frac{h}{2}\frac{\mathrm{d}x}{\mathrm{d}t}\bigg|_{x=x_{i},t=t_{i}}\]


Then, the estimate for x_{i+1} is calculated as:

    \[x_{i+1}=x_i+h\frac{\mathrm{d}x}{\mathrm{d}t}\bigg|_{x=x_{i+1/2}^{(0)},t=t_{i+1/2}}\]


Setting x_0=-5, t_0=0, t_1=0.1, and h=0.1, an initial estimate for x_{0.5}^{(0)} is given by:

    \[x_{0.5}^{(0)}=-5+\frac{h}{2}(t_0x_0^2+2x_0)=-5+\frac{0.1}{2}(0-10)=-5.5\]


Using this information, the slope at x_{0.5}^{(0)} can be calculated and used to estimate x_1:

    \[x_1=-5+h\left(t_{0.5}\left(x_{0.5}^{(0)}\right)^2+2x_{0.5}^{(0)} \right)=-5.949\]


Similarly, an initial estimate for x_{1.5}^{(0)} is given by:

    \[x_{1.5}^{(0)}=-5.949+\frac{h}{2}(t_1x_1^2+2x_1)=-5.949+0.05(0.1(-5.949)^2-2\times 5.949)=-6.3667\]


Using this information, the slope at x_{1.5}^{(0)} can be calculated and used to estimate x_2:

    \[x_2=-5.949+h\left(t_{1.5}\left(x_{1.5}^{(0)}\right)^2+2x_{1.5}^{(0)}\right)=-6.614\]

Proceeding iteratively gives the values of x_i up to t=5. The Microsoft Excel file MidPoint.xlsx provides the required calculations.

The following graph shows the produced numerical data (black dots) overlapping the exact solution (blue line). The Mathematica code is given below.
m1

View Mathematica Code
MidPointMethod[fp_, x0_, h_, t0_, tmax_] := (n = (tmax - t0)/h + 1;
  xtable = Table[0, {i, 1, n}];
  xtable[[1]] = x0;
  Do[xi120 = xtable[[i - 1]] + h/2*fp[xtable[[i - 1]], t0 + (i - 2) h];
   xtable[[i]] =  xtable[[i - 1]] + h (fp[xi120, t0 + (i - 1 - 1/2) h]), {i, 2, n}];
  Data2 = Table[{t0 + (i - 1)*h, xtable[[i]]}, {i, 1, n}];
  Data2)
Clear[x, xtable]
a = DSolve[{x'[t] == t*x[t]^2 + 2*x[t], x[0] == -5}, x, t];
x = x[t] /. a[[1]]
fp[x_, t_] := t*x^2 + 2*x;
Data2 = MidPointMethod[fp, -5.0, 0.1, 0, 5];
Plot[x, {t, 0, 5}, Epilog -> {PointSize[Large], Point[Data2]}, AxesOrigin -> {0, 0}, AxesLabel -> {"t", "x"}, PlotRange -> All]
Title = {"t_i", "x_i"};
Data2 = Prepend[Data2, Title];
Data2 // MatrixForm

View Python Code
# UPGRADE: need Sympy 1.2 or later, upgrade by running: "!pip install sympy --upgrade" in a code cell
# !pip install sympy --upgrade
import numpy as np
import sympy as sp
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
sp.init_printing(use_latex=True)

def MidPointMethod(fp, x0, h, t0, tmax):
  n = int((tmax - t0)/h + 1)
  xtable = [0 for i in range(n)]
  xtable[0] = x0
  for i in range(1,n):
    xi120 = xtable[i - 1] + h/2*fp(xtable[i - 1], t0 + (i - 1)*h)
    xtable[i] =  xtable[i - 1] + h*(fp(xi120, t0 + (i - 1/2)*h))
  Data = [[t0 + i*h, xtable[i]] for i in range(n)]
  return Data

x = sp.Function('x')
t = sp.symbols('t')
sol = sp.dsolve(x(t).diff(t) - t*x(t)**2 - 2*x(t), ics={x(0): -5})
display(sol)
def fp(x, t): return t*x**2 + 2*x
Data = MidPointMethod(fp, -5.0, 0.1, 0, 5)
x_val = np.arange(0,5,0.01)
plt.plot(x_val, [sol.subs(t, i).rhs for i in x_val])
plt.scatter([point[0] for point in Data],[point[1] for point in Data],c='k')
plt.xlabel("t"); plt.ylabel("x")
plt.grid(); plt.show()
print(["t_i", "x_i"],"\n",np.vstack(Data))

The following tool provides a comparison between the explicit Euler method and the midpoint method. The midpoint method behaves very similar to Heun’s method. Notice that around t\in[0,0.8], the function x varies highly in comparison to the rest of the domain. The biggest difference between midpoint method and the Euler method can be seen when h=0.1 around this area. The midpoint method is able to trace the curve while the Euler method has higher deviations.

 

 

 

 


 

Lecture Video

 

 

 

The following lecture video covers both Heun and the Midpoint Method

 

 

 

 

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