Control of a Robotic Swarm Formation to Track a Dynamic Target with Communication Constraints: Analysis and Simulation

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The LCPSO algorithm for tracking moving target in a constrained environment was represented with some limitations including just one attractor, no collision, limited speed which should be considered for future work for sure. The mathematical model and controlling approach are reasonable. 

Authors should be careful in Figure.1 to avoid any language other than English in vertical axis and change it to English.

Author Response

We apologize for this mistake, we have changed the language on the vertical axis of Figure 1.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments to the authors

Manuscript ID: applsci-1148382

Title: Control of a robotic swarm formation to track a dynamic target with communication constraints analysis and simulation

1) State clearly the contribution(s) of the manuscript in Section 1.

2) A method similar to (1) has been discussed in 10.1016/B978-0-12-820276-0.00029-7 and 10.1109/IROS.2018.8593857. Please discuss these sources in the manuscript for the sake of completeness.

3) Any comment on how to determine c0 in (2)? This parameter is crucial, as it determines the dependence on the previous value of v.

4) After (8), as the distance goes to zero, the repulsive field goes to – infinity (not +).

5) In Theorem 1, c0 is set to zero. Is it reasonable? Does it mean that the next value of v is independent of its value at the current time? Then, how can one ensure convergence? Also, if the authors wanted to set c0 to zero, why did they introduced from beginning?

6) Figure 6 (a) is vague. What does best tracked at time t mean?

Author Response

We would like to thank you for the detailed comments and suggestions made in the manuscript. We believe that the comments have identified areas that required improvements. Below, you will find a point by point description of how each comment was addressed in the manuscript. Your comments are in bold, and our answer is below the comments. The Article revised is on the same document.

• State clearly the contribution(s) of the manuscript in Section 1.

In the introduction, we made our contributions more clear, especially in the 5th paragraph (65 to 83 lines)

• A method similar to (1) has been discussed in 10.1016/B978-0-12-820276-0.00029-7 and 10.1109/IROS.2018.8593857. Please discuss these sources in the manuscript for the sake of completeness.

We have understood the contribution that could bring us the 1st article with the geofencing, which can be linked with the tracking of a source. However, we had more difficulties understanding the interest to cite the 2nd article. Indeed, this Robotic Manipulator uses analysis techniques and has a field of application that seems too far from our work. Therefore, we would like to have further details about what is missing in our article that the reference can complete.

• Any comment on how to determine c0 in (2)? This parameter is crucial, as it determines the dependence on the previous value of v.

We agree, therefore we included ,below equation (2) line 159, the limits to give to c0 to be applicable with an external reference.

• After (8), as the distance goes to zero, the repulsive field goes to – infinity (not +).

The correction has been made on line 209.

• In Theorem 1, c0 is set to zero. Is it reasonable? Does it mean that the next value of v is independent of its value at the current time? Then, how can one ensure convergence? Also, if the authors wanted to set c0 to zero, why did they introduced from beginning?

Indeed, c0 is set to zero was unsuitable, and for this reason, we have removed it from the Theorem and updated equation (17), which now includes the inertia. Thus, we can see that the pseudo mass does not influence the convergence. Moreover, we specify in section 4.6.1 that this weight does not impact our mathematical analysis concerning the stability and the formation of our swarm, which has already been demonstrated in the state of the art (see in particular the references [39,44] of our paper)

• Figure 6 (a) is vague. What does best tracked at time t mean?

We meant that the attractor of an agent in its communication limits. Because it was not clear, we removed this term in Figure 6a and replace it with « Attractor(s) ».

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Acceptable in the present form.