Research and Design of Precision Fertilizer Application Control System Based on PSO-BP-PID Algorithm
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments to author (MS agriculture-1889656)
This article focuses on combining PSO-BP algorithms in a PID system to achieve excellent over-peak and time for quick constant flow rate. By the way, in terms of agricultural use, the following are my major concerns and recommendations:
1) Fill in the details in the MS. For example, why were the three flow rate applications (0.4, 0.6, and 0.8 m3/h) chosen for this experimental test in terms of agricultural targets such as plants, fields, plant factories, and so on? What rate ranges are necessary for plant irrigation? Including, which rate was chosen as a control?
2) When compared to PID, the rate improving (by PSO-BP-PID benefit) time is in seconds. How does this relate to agricultural irrigation practical use? The discussion must conclude with water use efficiency targets in agriculture, such as plant and/or field, and so on. See, for example, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agwat.2021.107324 (Smart irrigation monitoring and control strategies for improving water use efficiency in precision agriculture: A review) and https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-25254-7 (Sustainable irrigation based on co-regulation of soil water supply and atmospheric evaporative demand), both of which are available online.
3) According to the results of Tables 2, 3, and 4, when comparing the regulation-time efficiency of PSO-BP-PID with the PID treatment (if the PID is set to 100%), the regulation time can be reduced to 34.64, 26.28, and 39.33 percent in 0.4, 0.6, and 0.8 m3/h, respectively. It demonstrated the possibility that the 0.6-flow rate is more efficient for system adjustment and target irrigation. The conclusion and abstract sections can then be improved to make the MS more appealing to fertilizer users in agricultural plant/field irrigation.
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Comments for author File: 
Comments.docx
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
This paper presents an optimization method for application of fertilizers for precision agriculture. I have the following observations.
1. What are the contributions of the paper? There are many papers discussing combination of particle swarm oprimization and back propagation methods. How is the proposed method different from those methods?
2. How do the authors decide the inital weights? The proper selection of initial weights is very imporant for achieving fast convergence rate. The authors should discuss the choice of initialization of weights.
3. Equation (1), the transfer function for the fertilization control system, what is the value of the the time constant and how did teh authors consider that value?
4. Figure 2 is a general control loop for a PID controller which is known to the readers of the paper who are working in the control systems. Teh authors should put a figure with more details in connectionwith their method.
5. The choice of proportional gain, integral time constant and derivative time constant are very important in PID. A discussion on the parameter selection of PID is missing.
6. Figure 4 is again too genral for a back propagation neural network. teh authors should put a figure showing the connection of BP NN with their method.
7. Equation (13), (14), (15) are the standard equations for neural networks. the authors should include the equations which give mathematical support to their method instead.
8. The additional performance metrics should be considered to valiadte the propsoed method.
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 3 Report
Dear Authors,
I have read your manuscript titled "Research and design of precision fertilizer application control system based on PSO-BP-PID algorithm" and I found it novel and scientifically interesting.
Please re-read your manuscript with a native English speaker with the aim of correcting the misspellings of English and few grammatical and punctuational errors.
Please put more precise info about the real usability of this technology in the agricultural practice.
Conclusion part is duplicated, please correct it.
Please specify what the exact reason was for choosing these 3 types of controllers for the comparison?
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
All the comments have been addressed by the authors in the revised manuscript.
