What is the total resistance of a network of resistors in series and in parallel?
A matrix R contains the resistances (in Ohm) of resistors, which are connected in series and in parallel:
The network consists of one or more 'strings' of resistors in series, each of which is connected in parallel with the others. Each row of the matrix contains the resistances of the resistors in that 'string', and all rows of resistors are connected in parallel. An input matrix may thus be represented as:
R = [120 200 1500 50;
500 50 NaN NaN;
3000 NaN NaN NaN;
460 180 900 NaN]
Since there must be as many columns in the matrix as the maximum number of resistors in any 'string', NaNs are used to 'pad out' any row in which that string has fewer resistors.
The simple case in the figure above would be represented as:
R = [R1 R2; R3 NaN]
Your function should take the matrix R as its input and return the total resistance (in Ohm) of the network of resistors.
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