Development Results of a Cross-Platform Positioning System for a Robotics Feed System at a Dairy Cattle Complex

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Manuscript ID: agriculture-2485933. Development results cross-platform positioning system for robotics systems feed the cattle at livestock complexes

Category under which Manuscript was reviewed:   Research Full Paper

ASSUMPTIONS FOR THE REVIEW

1. The Reviewer evaluates the manuscript under the RESEARCH ARTICLE category.

2. The Reviewer considers that the central obligation of the whole publication process is the benefit of the reader. All other considerations are subsidiary to the obligation to the reader. The reader must be informed in truthful, efficient, amicable manner, of the values of the manuscript and the manuscript must have very high editorial quality. This quality is needed to deliver the material to re reader in the easiest and most efficient possible manner.

3. The Reviewer assumes that the Review process aims to the improvement of the manuscript for the benefit of the Reader. The Observations in any review must be responded by improving the manuscript and not in argumentation with the Reviewer. The objective of the Review process is not that the Reviewer or the Author prove that each other is mistaken. Even if the Reviewer is mistaken, the authors must act upon the reasoning that the Reader may be equally misled by the manuscript. Therefore, a remedy IN THE MANUSCRIPT is required and that remedy is what the Reviewer expects as a response of his/her observations.

4. The Reviewer remarks that the Journal Review is not a Proof Reading stage. The authors must prepare the manuscript for Review and not use the Review Process to substitute the Proof Reading that the authors must carry out by using the normal offices in the home institutions.

GENERAL TOPIC OF THE MANUSCRIPT

The manuscript describes a system, comprising a Unmanned Vehicle Robot with Screw-based Dispenser. The goal of the system is to automatically push grain- or hay-based animal feed to large cattle herds. The Authors claim that the controller for the feed delivery avoids the INDUCTION devises, common in competitor approaches, thus gaining in simplicity and feed delivery precision and efficiency. 

OVERALL ASSESSMENT BY REVIEWER.

The Reviewer considers that the manuscript contains interesting material. The creators of the feed system have assembled tools and procedures from robot & kinematics, vehicle dynamics, control systems, computer vision, machine learning, and others, in order to have the feed pusher system up and running.  

However, the manuscript has the following weaknesses, which seriously compromise its publication: (a) the editorial quality (layout, sections, English language, figures quality, mathematical precision, etc) is very poor, (b) the authors undertake very few and feeble actions to convey the MANUSCRIPT CONTRIBUTION or MANUSCRIPT NOVELTY, (c) the technical discussion sections visit many (interesting) subjects but the Reader cannot relate than in the proper manner, as their scientific interface with each other is not laid out by the Authors. The profusion of Methodology subjects is such that the Authors  migrated some of them from the Methodology to the Results section. 

SPECIFIC COMPULSORY OBSERVATIONS

1- The Title is not an English sentence. At this time, it is written as a sequence of keywords. The Authors must write a title that qualifies as such in English language.

2- Please remove Commercial and Implementation details from Abstract (and all manuscript) unless they being essential. It is correct to give credit to copyright or trademark names in the manuscript, but certainly no in the sections whose limited space must be devoted to the scientific novelty of the manuscript.

3- Please write a Structured Abstract, The main points and a possible simple template are given in the Instructions below.

4- Please correct the Grammar, Spelling and Punctuation of the manuscript. If necessary, contact the Written English Clinic in your home Institution.

5- Eliminate all platitudes and  obvious common places from the manuscript. For example: It is not necessary to underline the advantages of the Automation in Agriculture. One or two sentences suffice. All references convincing the Reader of these Advantages are not needed and feel a bit condescending to the Reader.  Please keep common places and platitudes to a minimum. They hurt the Authors' effort and merits.

6- Make sure that a neutral person reads your manuscript, in order to pinpoint things that are so obvious for the Authors that they do not convey to the Reader. An Example (not the only one) is Fig 1. This figure designed by the Authors for the Authors but not for the Reader. Same with all figures and discussion text. Please improve Fig. quality. If you cannot figure out what is deficient with figures, please look for help of the Writing Clinic Office of your University or Institution.

7- Regarding Fig. 2: (and all figures) should be strongly technical, avoiding icons, arrows, etc. whose formatting is not scientific or technical. Connectors should be arrows (thin) and marked with the data that flows thought them. The name of the data should be accompanied by the symbols defined in the Glossary.

8- The section Methodology is very large, resulting from a manuscript that presents too many focus points. As a side result, the Methodology section has spread to the Results section. However, the solution is not to invade the Results section with Methodology material. Instead, the solution would be to focus the manuscript in the CONTRIBUTION or NOVELTY, treating the ancillary sub-problems as Black Boxes, with well defined Input/Output information. The Inputs and Outputs of these black boxes must be declared (with their units) in the Glossary section, and their symbols used through the manuscript.

9- In Figs. 3,4,6,7,9 it is not clear how the robot is oriented. The authors must add a more illustrative (possibly transparent) icon, super-imposed to the actual vehicle icon. This Icon must contain the Coordinate frame that is attached in rigid manner to the robot.

10- fig 5. Contains mistakes. Please use info of the (future) Glossary section and correct it.

11- Fig 7: The orientation of the robot seems to be mistaken, at coords (7,-4). If the robot Fuselage axis does not have to be tangent to the trajectory, please explicitly state so in the figure caption AND in the relevant paragraphs. The fuselage axis (to give it a name that should have but does not have in the paper) is one of the axis in the frame attached to the robot.

12- In Fig. 9 and all robot trajectory figures, sub-indices must be added to the various positions of the robot , to indicate the history of robot positions and orientations.  

13- Section 3.4 is an example of the too broad scope of the paper. The authors should: (1) present this section in a more laconic (Input/Output) manner. (2) Send to the RESULTS section what are really the results and keep in the METHODOLOGY section the (Laconic) material that describes the Method or Reasoning. In the current status of the manuscript, this section illustrates  that the authors (most understandably) want to include as most material of their work as possible. However, they should concentrate in this manuscript into the Agriculture aspect of their effort. On the other hand, the Authors can expand the robotics, imaging, Machine Learning, or any other material, in a more appropriate forum for that particular technical section, if they consider such materials interesting enough. The current manuscript manuscript would focus on AGRICULTURE supported by Robotics, Control, Imaging, etc. The dual manuscript woud be the technical tool X (Robotics, Control, Imaging, etc.) as support of productive sector (i.e. Agriculture). In this manner, this manuscript would be more focused while at the same time the Authors may have a chance to publish a conference or journal additional paper . All this is possible ONLY if the authors make this manuscript very conscise , with the I/O specification of each tool well written , in scientific terms. The sames is valid for sections 3.5, 3.6, 3.8, 3.3, and all sections that the authors may regard as ancillary ones and not supporting the fundamental contribution of the manuscript.

The Authors may ignore the above suggestion. That would be Ok. However, in any case, the manuscript sections must be modified to make sure their I/O structure, their place in the overall system, and modified to make sure that the content is really Results or is really Methodology. 

14- The Literature Review section MUST be written as per the instructions below. If the Authors want to write a soft introduction (with the platitudes and general truths), the place to use is a (short) section 1-Introduction, separate from section 2- Literature Review. Section 2- Literature Review must have a full fledge 2.X Lit. Review Conclusions, which justifies the manuscript. (see Instructions below).

15- An actual overall Flow diagram is needed and commented in the paragraphs in order to secure the whole paper. At the same time, Fig . 2 must be modified to comply with flow diagram standards (without eliminating the pictures).

GENERAL COMPULSORY OBSERVATIONS

1- The manuscript should adhere to the (standard) research manuscript structure:

Abstract,

Glossary of Symbols,

1. Introduction

2. Literature Review,

   2.X Conclusions of the Literature Review (and justification of the present manuscript)

3. Methodology

4. Results

5. Conclusions and Future Work

References

Appendices

2- A Structured Abstract is needed: (a) Domain of Contribution, (b) Problem to solve, (c) Significance of this problem, (d) Current competitor approaches and their limitations, (e) strategy of current contribution, (f) advantages and limitations above existing approaches (including authors' previous publications), (h) future work.  The Abstract should be reduced to approx 200-250 words. The Abstract should avoid minutia details which are not central to the contribution or description of already know methods.

The Referee indicates this template found in any of the Web pages for Article Writing: "In the domain of _______ , the problem of ________ is important because _____. Existing approximations to such a problem include ____ , ___ , ___. These approaches have disadvantages such as ___ , ___ , ____. To partially overcome these disadvantages, this manuscript presents the implementation of a method based on ____ . The positive results of this methodology are ___, ___, ____ with respect to competitor strategies. Future work is required to overcome the limitations  ___, ___, ____."

3- A Glossary table is needed, in which the mathematical symbols, acronyms and capitalizations are formally defined. The description should include the mathematical structure (scalar/ vector field, dimension R^n, functionality, etc.), meaning and physical units.

4- A section "2-Literature Review" is required with a taxonomy structure. In this section, the authors inform of the main streams of competitor investigations, IN THE PARTICULAR DOMAIN IN WHICH THE AUTHORS CLAIM THEIR CONTRIBUTION. Each trend should correspond to a clearly titled subsection. In this subsection, the strategy, advantages and disadvantages of each trenda are stated. Also, the authors must express the innovation presented in this manuscript with respect to THEIR previous publications.

A summary table is needed, in which the rows correspond to each trend. In each row, cells should be filled with (a) main approach / principle of the trend, (b) references in that trend, (c) advantages, (d) disadvantages. The last row corresponds to the present approach.

A subsection "2.X Conclusions of the Literature Review" is needed, which discussed how the authors' work relates to competitor approaches, what advantages does it have, and which (summarized) means will it use to achieve the goal. This paragraph is a summarized proposal of the research intent of the manuscript. Therefore, it must state the weak points of the state-of-art and how authors' work overcomes them. This short justification introduces the following sections 3. Methodology, 4. Results,.....

5- The display of Block Diagrams is required, for the authors to convey the design of their attempt. Block Diagrams  are required. In this standard, Boxes represents processes or functions and Connectors represents Data. Boxes and Connectors must be labeled. Connector labels must include the mathematical symbols defined in the Glossary and may include also a (short) English description of the Connector.

If the Diagram becomes too involved, it would be good idea to lump several sub-diagrams into one box and possibly to explode it in another figure.

6- The Authors must refrain from

(a) writing a Project Report. Large amounts or work are of course commendable, but they do not constitute a Research endeavor. On the contrary, the research manuscripts must be extremely efficient in the delivery of the research design and NOVEL results to the reader. A Research manuscript is not a Project Report. Methodologies or content which are well known should not appear in detailed manner. Instead they should be described in an Input/Output manner, unless an internal underpinning is central to the CONTRIBUTION of the paper.

(b) giving the reader a pedagogical tour over failed attempts.  Failed attempts should be summarily described in the section "2. Literature Review" but not devoted Reader's time.

7- Regarding the figures:

a- make the most efficient usage of the rectangular domain of a figure by minimizing empty, un-used space.

b- use White background as much as possible. In the actual image domain, avoid dark colors. If colors are dark, map them to bright colors and, if necessary, explain to the reader that the colors have been changed for the sake of legibility and aesthetics.

c- Include labels inside the image as much as possible, explaining the elements and their roles in the process. Use font sizes which produce character sizes no smaller than 10pt in the printed version.

d- use captions which are efficient to describe the figure relevance. Refrain from including reflections or discussion in the captions. Instead, cite and comment the figure in the paragraphs.

e- for decent quality figures, use pixels density near 300 dots per inch.

f- include citations to references in the figures when needed, including the right to include them if they have been published elsewhere.

g- refrain from describing the figures in the paragraphs. Write in the paragraphs only the reflections or comments on their information and not the informations itself.

g- refrain from saving figures by describing them in the paragraphs with words.

h- accompany tables with corresponding figures, which help the reader much more efficiently process the Table information. Replace the tables with XY, scattered, histogram of other plot types, whenever possible.

8- Information about experimental set-ups, equipment, conditions, etc. should not appear in paragraphs. Instead, it should appear in Tables. The paragraphs should be devoted to discussion instead of being devoted to convey literal data.

9- A subsection “4.x Computational Complexity” should be included in the section "4. Results” to compare the present vs. existing approaches, in terms of the asymptotic behavior of the algorithms (i.e. O(f(n)) analyses), without excluding  execution time statistics.  This comparative analysis must be performed on the basis of the normal computing expenses of the tasks and sub-tasks that the algorithmic literature accept as typical, specifically avoiding the (unfortunately common) febrile claims that most research teams make about the efficiency of their proposed solutions. In this manner, the present solutions may compare against the existing ones in a fair, leveled field. The discussion must include: time and storage complexity as well as pre- and post-processing. In the experience of the Reviewer, it is not a necessary condition for acceptance of a manuscript that its proposal defeats the others in the domain of complexity. However, this discussion is compulsory whenever the argument for a manuscript is (as frequently the case is) a more efficient and robust algorithm. 

The Reviewer is NOT asking the Authors to prove that their algorithms are faster than the competitor ones, but only to report their complexity.

Please see the overall comments.

Author Response

Dear reviewer. Thank you for taking the time to improve our manuscript.
We are very grateful for your constructive suggestions.
We have edited the manuscript and made significant changes.

In the initial version of our article, we did not pay enough attention to the issue of presenting the material in English, now we have worked out the issue of presenting the text in more detail.

We have made changes to the title of the manuscript in accordance with your recommendations, and also

- removed commercial details from the annotation of our article;

-  the text of the abstract was displayed more logically;

- added and adjusted professional terms;

- changed Figure 2 in accordance with the standard of technological schemes;

- corrected Figures 3, 4, 6, 7, 9 in accordance with your recommendation;

- Removed the error from Figure 7;

- The automatic positioning system algorithm processes images of the same size, so its complexity is constant. Thus, for our algorithm g(n) = n.

And also took into account the rest of your comments.

We also improved our manuscript based on the comments of other reviewers and made significant adjustments. Thank you for your help in making our work better.

With best wishes, Evgeniy Nikitin

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Excellent work, just a few comments.

- We are told that a custom remote control application was developed on the IOS platform for the robot. What protocol is communication established with? (Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, etc.).

- Describe more clearly the process and application of a database mentioned as a solution.

- Only Matlab Simulink software with the Simscape and Mechanics packages was used to model the motion process of a wheeled robot with visualization of movement trajectory changes and dependencies of kinematic-dynamic motion parameters or was another performed type of validation?

- To determine the amount of feed waste in the vision system, an algorithm has been developed. This algorithm calculates the propagation range from the fence and the volume, by means of an RGB stereo pair, after a binarization of the image, describing the binarized image of size [X,Y], using a matrix p(i,j) for represent each pixel, which is a lot of system resource consumption, so my question is, wouldn't the application of an artificial neural network in binarized and grayscale image processing have been better?

- Given the presence of noise in the system (if considered), among the most used techniques for noise reduction, which one was taken into account for its application and why? (Arithmetic mean, Gaussian mean, Weighted mean)

- A test of the described functions is described, which are very vague since the only thing that is described in detail is the effect of the ambient temperature of the farm on the 250 Ah battery, later mention is made of the motors and their application in a Very superficial, lack of description (They are from CD, Servomotors, P/P motors), what type of control was implemented, etc.

- In a future job description, what would be improved, implemented?

The suggestions and comments made would make the research and development work clearer.

Regarding the rest of the document, I have no further observations.

 A review-reading of the document is suggested. Minor editing of English language required.

Author Response

Dear reviewer. Thank you for taking the time to improve our manuscript.
We are very grateful for your constructive suggestions.
We have edited the manuscript and made significant changes.

And also took into account the rest of your comments.

We also improved our manuscript based on the comments of other reviewers and made significant adjustments. Thank you for your help in making our work better.

With best wishes, Evgeniy Nikitin

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Inconsistent use of livestock terminology in the title and abstract that is creating confusion. Use specific common terminology, dairy cattle instead of livestock in the title. Revisit the title for English editing for clarity.

Feed table is not a standard term, suggest feed alley or bunk.

Suggest not using livestock as not all species production systems require feed to be pushed up. In the abstract can you please provide actual numbers to the claims for accuracy and etc?

please arrange keywords alphabetically

citation for lines 36 and 37 please add

please add clear objectives of your study

please add the manufacturer information to the Matlab intro in the methods

Figure 1. please add the description all into the figure caption

Please re-organize the methods and results so that all methods are in the methods section

It is not clear how your conclusions relate to the objectives and the methods. Please revise.

Multiple phrases throughout that need revision for clarity, person switches between 1st and 3rd throughout. Please revise and stick with 3rd person.

Author Response

Dear reviewer. Thank you for taking the time to improve our manuscript.
We are very grateful for your constructive suggestions.
We have edited the manuscript and made significant changes.

And also took into account the rest of your comments.

We also improved our manuscript based on the comments of other reviewers and made significant adjustments. Thank you for your help in making our work better.

With best wishes, Evgeniy Nikitin

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The authors must double check the units in Fig 08. Unless there is a misunderstanding, the angular velocity must have units [rad/sec] and not [1/sec^2].

Author Response

Dear reviewer. Thank you for taking the time to improve our manuscript.
We have changed the units of measurement in the figures and tables in accordance with your recommendations.

Best regards, the author of the manuscript, Evgeny Nikitin

Reviewer 3 Report

Suggest editing the title to: Development results of a cross-platform positioning system for a robotic feed system at dairy cattle complexes

I feel the authors have addressed my comments adequately to warrant publication.

Some phrases can be reworded to improve the clarity throughout the manuscript

Author Response

Dear reviewer. Thank you for taking the time to improve our manuscript.

We have edited the title of our manuscript according to your wishes.

Best regards, the author of the manuscript, Evgeny Nikitin