MATLAB: Create a block diagonal matrix with same repeating block

Question

I have a matrix K of dimensions n x n. I want to create a new block diagonal matrix M of dimensions N x N, such that it contains d blocks of matrix K as its diagonal.

I would have directly used M = blkdiag(K,K,K) etc. had d been smaller. Unfortunately, d is very large and I don't want to manually write the formula with d exactly same arguments for the blkdiag() function.

Is there any shorter, smarter way to do this?

Answer 1

you can use kron for that.

M = kron(X,Y)

returns the Kronecker tensor product of X and Y. The result is a large array formed by taking all possible products between the elements of X and those of Y. If X is m-by-n and Y is p-by-q, then kron(X,Y) is m*p-by-n*q. So in your case something like this will do:

M = kron(eye(L),K)

with L the # of blocks.

Answer 2

tmp = repmat({K},d,1);
M = blkdiag(tmp{:});

You should never use eval, or go into for loops unnecessarily. Kron is a very elegant way. Just wanted to share this as it also works.