A Heuristic Elastic Particle Swarm Optimization Algorithm for Robot Path Planning
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
This paper presents a heuristic elastic PSO path planning algorithm. The algorithm is using the global convergence of the A* algorithm and the iterative convergence of the PSO algorithm to estimate the global optimum path.
Presented solution is interesting, however, in order to publish, the paper requires many improvements.
Major issues:
1. The introduction should be improved. In the paper lacking a thorough review of PSO algorithms used for path planning.
2. What is the difference compared to previous planning algorithms that use PSO? What is the contribution of the paper? This should be clearly explained in the introduction.
3. The description of the A* algorithm should be extended and improved.
4. The pseudo code of EPSO algorithm is unreadable (section 3.2.4).
5. The effectiveness of the proposed algorithm should be compared to a larger number of algorithms. One is not enough.
Minor issues:
1. I suggest that you use phrase "ordinary PSO" instead of "traditional PSO".
2. Please explain the variable ω in formula (2).
3. Velocity (v) and position (x) in PSO (equation (2)) are vectors. In some implementations, random numbers (r1, r2) are also a vector. Please correct the symbols in the formulas and text.
4. In lines 75 and 79 are missing spaces.
5. In the description of the PSO path planning algorithm, please add information in which section the fitness function is described.
6. If I understood correctly, every particle contains a hypothetical path. Please clarify this in section 3.2.1.
7. What is the value of ω1 and ω2 in the equation (12)? Please change the symbols so that they do not interfere with equation (2).
8. Please change the header of section 3.2.4 on the "EPSO algorithm" and add a sentence about the pseudo code directly before it.
9. Figure 2 has a low quality.
10. Please correct the sentence in line 352.
11. Please correct the captions under the sub-figures in figures 3 and 9 (align and remove dots).
12. In the text you have indicated that Pd is from -inf to 1, while in the table there are values up to 100. Please be made uniform, and optionally modify equation (28).
13. Please give a more accurate time value in the tables. Is this time correct for your algorithm or both algorithms?
Author Response
Dear editor:
We are truly grateful to yours and other reviewers’ critical comments and thoughtful suggestions. Based on these comments and suggestions, we have made careful modifications on the original manuscript. We hope the new manuscript will meet your magazine’s standard. We have highlighted the changes to our manuscript within the document by using colored text. Below you will find our point-by-point responses to the reviewers’ comments/ questions:
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
This paper poposed new PSO for robot path optimization.
The paper was well written and provide us interesting topics.
For the publication, I request authors as follow.
- All figures should be clealized.
- Please add the problem statements to be solved in this article before 2nd section with adding schimatic illustrations.
- In section 2, please define "n." Then, please explain how to obtain the optimum f(n) which is close to the exact f(n).
- In Eq. 12, the design problem seems multi-objective. Did not you consider introduce Pareto optimum theory?
- In figure 1, please add the flowchat regarding normal PSO applied to the path planning algorithm.
Author Response
Dear editor:
We are truly grateful to yours and other reviewers’ critical comments and thoughtful suggestions. Based on these comments and suggestions, we have made careful modifications on the original manuscript. We hope the new manuscript will meet your magazine’s standard. We have highlighted the changes to our manuscript within the document by using colored text. Below you will find our point-by-point responses to the reviewers’ comments/ questions.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 3 Report
Please see for the following:
- “ ε is the bounce threshold” (or bound threshold) line204, p.5
- “di is the length of each node,” (the length between nodes?) please clarify
- “……+rand(RANGE)” line 209, (24) What are the values of RANGE? Are these predefined for all the experiments? What is the role of these values in the performance?
- NOMAL_UPDATE (NORMAL_UPDATE) line 243
- Is there any difference between a safe path and secure path? Line 117,p.3
Author Response
Dear editor:
We are truly grateful to yours and other reviewers’ critical comments and thoughtful suggestions. Based on these comments and suggestions, we have made careful modifications on the original manuscript. We hope the new manuscript will meet your magazine’s standard. We have highlighted the changes to our manuscript within the document by using colored text. Below you will find our point-by-point responses to the reviewers’ comments/ questions.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
I am satisfied with the corrections made in the work and the authors' answers to my comments, but I have a few more comments:
designations in the formulas (2), (3), (26), (27) and description are ambiguous, please standardize the notation (in the formulas (2) and (3) there are vectors, in the description and formulas (26) and (27), not. Please check the article in this respect.
why there are brackets at r1 and r2, they are variables, vectors or maybe functions?
please improve the quality of figures 4, 5, 6 and 7. Use the vector format instead of the raster format.
Author Response
Dear editor: We are truly grateful to yours and other reviewers’ critical comments and thoughtful suggestions. Based on these comments and suggestions, we have made careful modifications on the original manuscript. We hope the new manuscript will meet your magazine’s standard.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 3 Report
It looks fine now. Thank youAuthor Response
Dear editor: We are truly grateful to yours and other reviewers’ critical comments and thoughtful suggestions. Based on these comments and suggestions, we have made careful modifications on the original manuscript. We hope the new manuscript will meet your magazine’s standard.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
