On the Unification of Legged and Aerial Robots for Planetary Exploration Missions

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The work addresses the task of developing an unified solution that incorporates quadruped and aerial robots for planetary exploration missions. 

The topic fits the scope of the journal. 

The manuscript is well written, the structure of the paper is clear and the language is proper.

The contributions are well delimited in the introduction section. However, I strongly suggest revisiting more references and related work in the topic covered by the paper. 

A table should be included in order to position regarding the related work. It should be very useful for the good job done.

Results are well described supporting the objectives of the research.

The manuscript needs a revision in order to correct typos.

Author Response

The authors would like to thank the Editor and all Reviewers for their valuable comments that have helped us to significantly improve the quality of our
submitted article entitled “On the Unification of Legged and Aerial Robots for
Planetary Exploration Missions”. Please note, that in the revised version, all
comments have been taken under consideration, while it should be noticed that
the corresponding changes have been denoted with blue font colour in the revised manuscript.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Author presents the overview of the unification of legged and aerial robots for planetary exploration missions. Article and the methodology is based on assumptions, some measuring and on proposed scenarios. Some major errors need to be modified in paper.

Page n: At first, paper look inconsistent. There are some theoretical (only fundamental) parts that bring only low added value. Results are only statement about the figures that are not identified. What was the main aim of this paper is for which journal it was intended? The statements about something is not possible to evaluate in proper way, because in this form, it looks like maintenance manual for legged and aerial robots.

Page n: Authors should define what the main scope of the paper is and what the main point of view of the paper is.

Page n: Where is the scientific nature of the paper?

Page 1, Row 10: The keywords are common. Adjust them for specific application.

Page 1, Row 27: Authors did not compare results with different works. Adjust this statement.

Page 3, Row 83-85: Authors need to better identify the position of figures, because there are 4 figures and it is not possible to identify what statement is pointed to specific figure.

Page 3: Adjust the figure description and denotation (for example a), b) c) …).

The positive benefit of the article is the investigation on interesting topics, but without scientific base.

Author Response

The authors would like to thank the Editor and all Reviewers for their valuable comments that have helped us to significantly improve the quality of our
submitted article entitled “On the Unification of Legged and Aerial Robots for
Planetary Exploration Missions”. Please note, that in the revised version, all
comments have been taken under consideration, while it should be noticed that
the corresponding changes have been denoted with blue font colour in the revised manuscript.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

The authors are tackling the challenge of developing a single solution that combines four-legged and aerial robots for planetary exploration missions. The task itself involves developing a passive landing platform for drones as the hardware link between the Spot robot and the drone, which has the active locking and unlocking capabilities needed to hold the drone securely on Spot, regardless of whether it is standing still or moving. 

The task itself is quite interesting and the authors use quite rare equipment. Therefore, the article may be quite interesting to readers.

My main comments are as follows

1) The abstract is poorly structured. It makes the value of the work unclear. The authors probably should have highlighted the uniqueness of the work more clearly.

2) A lot of attention is paid to the design of the platform itself. At the same time, the algorithms that ensure the landing of the drone on the four-legged robot are very briefly described. The authors should have disclosed in more detail the very implementation of control and interaction algorithms and the development of such algorithms.

3)The results present very briefly the possibility of landing itself. However, there is no qualitative assessment of the landing system. Perhaps some parameters of the flight and motion of the robots should be removed, if possible.

Author Response

The authors would like to thank the Editor and all Reviewers for their valuable comments that have helped us to significantly improve the quality of our
submitted article entitled “On the Unification of Legged and Aerial Robots for
Planetary Exploration Missions”. Please note, that in the revised version, all
comments have been taken under consideration, while it should be noticed that
the corresponding changes have been denoted with blue font colour in the revised manuscript.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 3 Report

The authors have revised the manuscript as recommended. Yes, this is a more technical article, but nevertheless quite interesting.