Using RPA for Performance Monitoring of Dynamic SHM Applications

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

1. How effective is this low-cost MEMS accelerometer data acquisition system in comparison to other data acquisition systems?
2. Since SHM requires long-term monitoring of any structure, how well are RPA and low-cost sensing techniques suited for long-term monitoring?
3. Could you please provide more information about the Design Science Research Method (DSRM) and how it is being used in this research?
4. In this research, how well the system performs in terms of cost effectiveness when compared to traditional manual operating techniques
5. When it comes to SHM and its applications, there are a plenty of accelerometers on the market. How effective is the Super Adaptable Reliable Accelerometer (SARA) when compared to other accelerometers?
6. You have used wireless sensing methods in this research; how does wireless sensing provide control over communication when compared to wired methods of communication?
7. When it comes to real-time applications, what is the noise density and accuracy of SARA, and how effective is it?
8. In line 722, you mentioned that SARA is capturing 234 files for 48 hours totalling approximately 2200mb and that those files are being received via email. How are you going to manage such massive amounts of data and email that have been subjected to long-term monitoring?
9. The conclusion section is excessively lengthy; please attempt to shorten it by omitting unnecessary words. Additionally, why are so many references mentioned in the conclusion? Whenever possible, avoid references during the conclusion session or provide an adequate justification.
10. You've added a few suggestions for future studies in line 778, but why don't you write a separate session outlining the project's future scope and your recommendations for upcoming researchers?
11. Kindly provide valuable points to justify the RPA as a low cost sensor.
12. Have you investigate the age and type of utility of the structure? If so, kindly include those details

Author Response

The response to the first reviewer is attached.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The paper is valuable and bestows an exciting application of RPA and IoT in Structural Health Monitoring. The authors present an extensive literature review (that could have deserved a dedicated paper) and a small demonstration. The paper's focus is on the software, electronics, but not on the application to real structures. The demonstration in section 5 is relatively poor. The authors show the deployment of a single sensor. However, this cannot be considered an application of SHM. Data acquisition is not enough for an SHM system, it is only a prerequisite.

Therefore I recommend major revisions:

Please try to adequately address the following issue. Is the proposed system adequate for SHM? Did the authors attempt to deploy multiple sensors and estimate structural features (modal parameters, e.g.)? Is the system adequate to extract structural features which can be used in an SHM process, from data acquisition to the estimation of the structural reliability?

The introduction can be expanded. Please consider the following papers in the reference list about structural health monitoring and different strategies to structural health monitoring, like damage indicators:

-Aloisio, A., Di Battista, L., Alaggio, R., & Fragiacomo, M. (2020). Sensitivity analysis of subspace-based damage indicators under changes in ambient excitation covariance, severity and location of damage. Engineering Structures, 208, 110235.

-Zhou, Y. L., & Wahab, M. A. (2017). Cosine based and extended transmissibility damage indicators for structural damage detection. Engineering Structures, 141, 175-183.

-Muttillo, M., Stornelli, V., Alaggio, R., Paolucci, R., Di Battista, L., de Rubeis, T., & Ferri, G. (2020). Structural health monitoring: An iot sensor system for structural damage indicator evaluation. Sensors, 20(17), 4908.

-the authors showed the electronic details of their research without sufficiently mentioning the experimental tests for validation. The reviewer wonders if the paper is more suitable for Sensors (MDPI) than buildings.

-The conclusions are too generic. Please summarize your findings in the field of accelerometric measurements for Structural Health Monitoring. 

Author Response

The authors sincerely appreciate the positive comments of the two Reviewers and are very grateful for their suggestions and observations. These comments certainly have improved the quality of the paper. In addition, they gave us useful hints on our future research. Detailed responses, to each of the reviewer’ comments are provided in the following lines. The answers of the authors are highlighted in green and the new information is in blue. The removed text from the article is highlighted in red

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

The authors report on the application of RPA software to bridge vibration monitoring, which is a scientific novelty. Software robots are used in place of humans for repetitive and low-value tasks, such as logging into applications and systems; moving files and folders; extracting, copying, and pasting data; interpreting text; automating images; and completing routine analyzes and reports. An inexpensive single-axis accelerometer is used to measure accelerations at the mounted position on a real bridge. An Arduino microcontroller is used to collect data and RPA software is used to automatically copy the data to a human-monitored directory and to autonomously overcome and restore correct system behavior in the event of common errors. The system has been validated in tests in a real-world environment where human-caused errors were successfully resolved. Significant time savings in terms of man-hours were observed.

Figure 6: check text alignment.

Line 191: check citation [44][45]

Line 428: reference on figure 6, should it be figure 5?

Line 560: what are conventional units?

Line 688: Otherwise, the robot notified the users of the email (email is correct?) error, with a built-in Uipath activity "send mail"

Line 784: for critical values to alert users using the bot (this is the first time bot is used instead of robot) when this occurs.

Author Response

The authors sincerely appreciate the positive comments of the two Reviewers and are very grateful for their suggestions and observations. These comments certainly have improved the quality of the paper. In addition, they gave us useful hints on our future research. Detailed responses, to each of the reviewer’ comments are provided in the following lines. The answers of the authors are highlighted in green and the new information is in blue. The removed text from the article is highlighted in red

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The author has given all the commands from the reviewer's side. The article may be published in its present form.

Reviewer 2 Report

The paper can be considered for publication.