Construction of Functions for Fractional Derivatives using Matlab

MATLAB is a high level programming tool for technical computing, its application cuts across different sphere of science, engineering, finance, communication, music etc. With the current increase in the use of non-integer order derivatives, there is a need to have tools that handle them for effective applications. In this paper, we present a brief comparative review of 2 expressions of fractional derivative. MATLAB functions for approximating Riemann-Liouville and Caputo fractional derivatives are presented alongside. Numerical simulations with test examples are implemented and results compared. To effectively handle non-polynomial function, Taylor series expansion is employed to convert the function into a form that can be easily handled.