Review Reports

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The conclusions should be expanded. Please give more detailed evaluation of obtained results in the conclusions.

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

All the basis for a proper research paper are missing. None of the following items is well discussed:

1)      Motivation

2)      Requirements

3)      System Configuration

4)      Testing

5)      Results

Reported mathematics is not original. It could be replaced by a citation.

The original contribution of the paper, if any, is obscure to this reviewer.

I suggest to read several papers that have a similar topic, such as number 4 and 20 in the references. Moreover, I suggest to extend the literature. Citations are limited to few sources and many sources are conferences.

Using a specific software tool is not research. In particular, if no benchmark is used to demonstrate the advantages.

Using a figure reported from a commercial software, e.g. ROS in Figure 12, without comparing to a general purpose graph does not allow readers that are not familiar with this software to understand the meaning. ROS is a very common software, but the community of Drones readers includes a lot of people that is not familiar with ROS.

Figure 14 is not proper for a research paper. It just reports a screen dump. What is the innovative content?

Figures 15-16-19 Units on axes are missing. This is a serious error for researchers.

The same authors cite this as preliminary results in the conclusion the content of the paper. Preliminary results are not worth to be published in a journal.

English language is poor, e.g. “the aircraft roll 386 angle can all reach the expected angle”

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

This paper introduces a scenario modeling approach and obstacle avoidance in V-Tail Fixed-Wing UAVs. It focuses on a comprehensive simulation environment using Gazebo and ROS, aiming to design a realistic V-Tail aircraft model, But there is a lot of confusion in the paper's content, so kindly go through these major issues and resubmit the paper.

 

1. The title and abstract of the paper reflect the focus of the paper's investigation regarding obstacle avoidance in V-tail fixed-wing Unmanned Aerial Vehicles. It is quite weird that there is no section about obstacle avoidance and its method in the draft.

2. What are the factors not considered in the equation describing the sum of external forces acting on the UAV (Equation 7)? Specifically, discuss the omission of drag forces and the effects of crosswind in the given context. How might the absence of these factors impact the accuracy of the model's representation of UAV behavior?

3. How was the V-Tail Fixed-wing UAV 3D model developed using SolidWorks, and what are the key features of the model? Describe the components and moving parts of the aircraft model, and explain the approach taken for aerodynamic simulation using the Gazebo simulator. Additionally, why were certain aerodynamic aspects, such as appearance and flaps, not considered during the SolidWorks modeling process?

4. In Section 4, the author introduces the flight threat scenarios; however, the text does not elaborate on whether the aircraft is equipped with a specific obstacle avoidance system to navigate through these scenarios. It remains unclear whether the author simply created the scenarios for simulation purposes without addressing how the aircraft would effectively handle and overcome these challenges."

5. Discuss the use of PD controllers for roll angle control in the aircraft simulation. What are the parameters used in the PD controller, and how do they contribute to stabilizing the aircraft's roll angle?

6. The conclusion provides an overview of the designed V-tail aircraft and the incorporation of various threat scenarios in the simulation environment. However, the abstract emphasizes the development of a scenario modeling approach for obstacle avoidance in V-tail fixed-wing UAVs. This raises uncertainty about whether the designed aircraft in the conclusion includes obstacle avoidance capabilities or if the focus is purely on scenario modeling. Can you clarify how the designed aircraft in the conclusion corresponds to the obstacle avoidance modeling discussed in the abstract?

7.Figures are not in a particular aspect ratio, such as Figure 12. Some figures caption need more description.

 

8. Writing and arrangement of the draft should be reorganized.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 3 Report

1. Still the abstract and Title does not shows the technological innovation and motivation of the study.

2.If the plugin provided by the Gazebo's official sources are used, then what is the innovation of the study.

3.As the study states that the V Tail design, but when the question about the design of the components was asked, stull the author replied that it uses Gazebo's official aerodynamics plugin. Which was again not justified to state the V-Tail Design.

4.In point 4 , the author has to state how the threat scenarios are overcome using V-Tail design and what parameters are used by to avoid this threats. Still the response was justified as it shows that you are only modeling the threat scenarios, so what is the novelty of the study.

5.Still there were some mistakes in figures and some part need more explanation.

These are questions I found unclear, and I believe the author needs to further refine the paper for a more satisfactory outcome. I remain unsatisfied with some responses, particularly the lack of comprehensive flowcharts explaining methods such as ROS and Gazebo implementation, threat detection and avoidance, and controller design. It would be beneficial for the author to review more related papers and present additional details in a more organized manner.

 

Merely creating a scenario model in Gazebo isn't sufficient for publication. The study should include comparisons involving V-Tail Fixed-wing or other fixed-wing types on the same terrain. Additionally, it should detail changes in control parameters and the issues issues which they are resolving.

It can be improved

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 3

Reviewer 3 Report

Ok I accept the explanation and Revised Version.