Plot variables out of differential equations system function - python-2.7

Question

I have a 4-4 differential equations system in a function (subsystem4) and I solved it with odeint funtion. I managed to plot the results of the system. My problem is that I want to plot and some other equations (e.g. x,y,vcxdot...) which are included in the same function (subsystem4) but I get NameError: name 'vcxdot' is not defined. Also, I want to use some of these equations (not only the results of the equation's system) as inputs in a following differential equations system and plot all the equations in the same period of time (t). I have done this using Matlab-Simulink but it was much easier because of Simulink blocks. How can I have access to and plot all the equations of a function (subsystem4) and use them as input in a following system? I am new in python and I use Python 2.7.12. Thank you in advance!
import numpy as np
from scipy.integrate import odeint
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
def subsystem4(u,t):
added_mass_x = 0.03 # kg
added_mass_y = 0.04
mb = 0.3 # kg
m1 = mb-added_mass_x
m2 = mb-added_mass_y
l1 = 0.07 # m
l2 = 0.05 # m
J = 0.00050797 # kgm^2
Sa = 0.0110 # m^2
Cd = 2.44
Cl = 3.41
Kd = 0.000655 # kgm^2
r = 1000 # kg/m^3
f = 2 # Hz
c1 = 0.5*r*Sa*Cd
c2 = 0.5*r*Sa*Cl
c3 = 0.5*mb*(l1**2)
c4 = Kd/J
c5 = (1/(2*J))*(l1**2)*mb*l2
c6 = (1/(3*J))*(l1**3)*mb
vcx = u[0]
vcy = u[1]
psi = u[2]
wz = u[3]
x = 3 + 0.3*np.cos(t)
y = 0.5 + 0.3*np.sin(t)
xdot = -0.3*np.sin(t)
ydot = 0.3*np.cos(t)
xdotdot = -0.3*np.cos(t)
ydotdot = -0.3*np.sin(t)
vcx = xdot*np.cos(psi)-ydot*np.sin(psi)
vcy = ydot*np.cos(psi)+xdot*np.sin(psi)
psidot = wz
vcxdot = xdotdot*np.cos(psi)-xdot*np.sin(psi)*psidot-ydotdot*np.sin(psi)-ydot*np.cos(psi)*psidot
vcydot = ydotdot*np.cos(psi)-ydot*np.sin(psi)*psidot+xdotdot*np.sin(psi)+xdot*np.cos(psi)*psidot
g1 = -(m1/c3)*vcxdot+(m2/c3)*vcy*wz-(c1/c3)*vcx*np.sqrt((vcx**2)+(vcy**2))+(c2/c3)*vcy*np.sqrt((vcx**2)+(vcy**2))*np.arctan2(vcy,vcx)
g2 = (m2/c3)*vcydot+(m1/c3)*vcx*wz+(c1/c3)*vcy*np.sqrt((vcx**2)+(vcy**2))+(c2/c3)*vcx*np.sqrt((vcx**2)+(vcy**2))*np.arctan2(vcy,vcx)
A = 12*np.sin(2*np.pi*f*t+np.pi)
if A>=0.1:
wzdot = ((m1-m2)/J)*vcx*vcy-c4*wz**2*np.sign(wz)-c5*g2-c6*np.sqrt((g1**2)+(g2**2))
elif A<-0.1:
wzdot = ((m1-m2)/J)*vcx*vcy-c4*wz**2*np.sign(wz)-c5*g2+c6*np.sqrt((g1**2)+(g2**2))
else:
wzdot = ((m1-m2)/J)*vcx*vcy-c4*wz**2*np.sign(wz)-c5*g2
return [vcxdot,vcydot,psidot,wzdot]
u0 = [0,0,0,0]
t = np.linspace(0,15,1000)
u = odeint(subsystem4,u0,t)
vcx = u[:,0]
vcy = u[:,1]
psi = u[:,2]
wz = u[:,3]
plt.figure(1)
plt.subplot(211)
plt.plot(t,vcx,'r-',linewidth=2,label='vcx')
plt.plot(t,vcy,'b--',linewidth=2,label='vcy')
plt.plot(t,psi,'g:',linewidth=2,label='psi')
plt.plot(t,wz,'c',linewidth=2,label='wz')
plt.xlabel('time')
plt.legend()
plt.show()

Answer 1

To the immediate question of plotting the derivatives, you can get the velocities by directly calling the ODE function again on the solution,
u = odeint(subsystem4,u0,t)
udot = subsystem4(u.T,t)
and get the separate velocity arrays via
vcxdot,vcydot,psidot,wzdot = udot
In this case the function involves branching, which is not very friendly to vectorized calls of it. There are ways to vectorize branching, but the easiest work-around is to loop manually through the solution points, which is slower than a working vectorized implementation. This will again procude a list of tuples like odeint, so the result has to be transposed as a tuple of lists for "easy" assignment to the single array variables.
udot = [ subsystem4(uk, tk) for uk, tk in zip(u,t) ];
vcxdot,vcydot,psidot,wzdot = np.asarray(udot).T
This may appear to double somewhat the computation, but not really, as the solution points are usually interpolated from the internal step points of the solver. The evaluation of the ODE function during integration will usually happen at points that are different from the solution points.
For the other variables, extract the computation of position and velocities into functions to have the constant and composition in one place only:
def xy_pos(t): return 3 + 0.3*np.cos(t), 0.5 + 0.3*np.sin(t)
def xy_vel(t): return -0.3*np.sin(t), 0.3*np.cos(t)
def xy_acc(t): return -0.3*np.cos(t), -0.3*np.sin(t)
or similar that you can then use both inside the ODE function and in preparing the plots.
What Simulink most likely does is to collect all the equations of all the blocks and form this into one big ODE system which is then solved for the whole state at once. You will need to implement something similar. One big state vector, and each subsystem knows its slice of the state resp. derivatives vector to get its specific state variables from and write the derivatives to. The computation of the derivatives can then use values communicated among the subsystems.
What you are trying to do, solving the subsystems separately, works only for resp. will likely result in a order 1 integration method. All higher order methods need to be able to simultaneously shift the state in some direction computed from previous stages of the method, and evaluate the whole system there.