State-of-the-Art Flocking Strategies for the Collective Motion of Multi-Robots

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The author mainly reviews the literature on multi-robot systems from 2019 to 2024, introducing a variety of topics such as Preliminaries of flocking, Flocking Control, and Applications of flocking robots. The paper also organizes the evolution of flocking control rules, conceptualizes swarm or collective control, and assesses the phenomena of collective behavior in multi-robot systems. I suggest the following revisions:

1. In the paper titled "State-of-the-Art Flocking Strategies for the Collective Motion of Multi-Robots," the author attempts to introduce readers to the latest research in the field. However, there are only two references from 2024, and the author should include more recent literature to align with the "State-of-the-Art" claim.
2. The author introduces a variety of concepts in the multi-robot field, such as swarm and flocking, and outlines the logic of the paper in Figure 2. While the review covers a range of methods related to collective behavior, it lacks insights for researchers in the field. For instance, the critical analysis of the limitations of current methods and how the paper addresses these issues could be enhanced.
3. The clarity of the images should be improved, such as Figure 6. Some images appear to be distorted, like Figure 3, which looks quite strange.
4. In Figure 8, the author presents several application scenarios, but the use of cartoon illustrations is very abstract, making it difficult to understand the specific applications of drones from the images. It is recommended to use real-life images instead of cartoons.
5. Some images are misleading, such as Figure 9. When the drone formation passes through a narrow passage, it seems to proportionally scale down the shape rather than change the configuration of the formation or reduce the distance between drones to pass through.
6. What do the superscripts in formulas (4-5) represent?
7. In Table 2, the author summarizes different application areas with various robots such as mobile agents, UAVs, AXVs, and multi-wheeled mobile robots. However, this is only briefly mentioned in the text. The author should elaborate on the conclusions of this table or provide insights for the readers.
8. In Section 4.5, the author provides a link, which should be placed in the References. Additionally, the link is no longer active.
9. Some tables and formulas need better formatting to ensure that readers can clearly understand the content. For example, formulas occupy two lines; Table 3 spans three pages and lacks lines to distinguish which content belongs to which categories.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

 

The work is reasonably well written, albeit with some inaccuracies.

The paper is interesting but needs new links and typo corrections before publication.

Recommendations for improvement:

Misprints to correct:

Line 184: are; -> are:

Figure 2: center the content of the figure, needs more space on the left.

Line 228: add space before is the distance

Line 272: y_t is the outout responseà at time t?

Line 228: equation (3) -> Equation

Line 291: v(t) represents velocity --> at time t?

Line 422: equation (5) -> Equation

Line 429: f_xy -> f_ij ? (as Equation 5…)

Lines 482-484 Sentence too long and without punctuation. Break it in two.

Figure 6: The image is blurry and hard to read. Replace it with a higher resolution one. The difference between the last two elements of the legend is not clear.

Line 536: below, -> .

Table 1 page 17 -> remove space in the leader    to steer

 

Recommendations for improvement, I reccomend:

-            Citations in section 3 on Reynol’d rules and on the Cucker-Smale model

-            In section 3.3.3. about Swarm Intelligence

-            Butterfly Optimizer: [Kumar A, Misra RK, Singh D. Butterfly optimizer. In: 2015 IEEEWorkshop on Computational Intelligence: Theories, Applications and Future Directions (WCI); 2015. p. 1–6.]

-            Cuckoo Optimization Algorithm: [Rajabioun R. Cuckoo Optimization Algorithm. Applied Soft Computing. 2011;11(8):5508–5518.]

-            Dragonfly Algorithm: [Mirjalili S. Dragonfly algorithm: a new meta-heuristic optimiza[1]tion technique for solving single-objective, discrete, and multi[1]objective problems. Neural Comput Appl. 2016;27(4):1053– 1073]

-            Eagle Strategy: [ Yang XS, Deb S. In: Eagle strategy using Levy walk and firefly ´ algorithms for stochastic optimization. Berlin: Springer; 2010. p. 101–111.Mosquito Flying Optimization: [Alauddin M. Mosquito flying optimization (MFO). In: 2016 International Conference on Electrical, Electronics, and Opti[1]mization Techniques (ICEEOT). IEEE; 2016. p. 79–84.]

-            In section 3.3.4 about Machine Learning algorithm to recognize pattern (line 601):

[Cavallaro C., Vizzari G. “A Novel Spatial-Temporal Analysis Approach to Pedestrian Groups Detection” (2022) Procedia Computer Science, 207, pp. 2364 - 2373. DOI: 10.1016/j.procs.2022.09.295]

Bibliography formatting:

-            Citations no. 4, 12, 13, 86 are indented.

-            In addition, the insertion of the type Surname, Name is incorrect and has sometimes been inverted without a comma.

-            Citation 4- Insert a space between Engeneering and 10. Other spaces are missing in other lines.

-            The quotation marks should always be standardized like this " "

Comments on the Quality of English Language

 

it's ok

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

State-of-the-Art Flocking Strategies for the Collective Motion of Multi-Robots

 

Zain Anwar Ali, Eman H. Alkhammash, Raza Hasan

In the paper the authors presents the taxonomy of flocking control based on different schemes, structures, and strategies.

According to the reviewer, the authors do not present anything new or/and of their own. It should also be noted that the presented drawings probably(?) do not belong to the authors and no source is given for them.

In the opinion of the reviewer, the paper is not suitable for publication.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Accept in present form

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

I appreciate the authors' explanations, but I stand by my earlier review. I leave the decision to publish to the editor.