Design and Experimental Results of an AIoT-Enabled, Energy-Efficient Ceiling Fan System

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

MDPI Sustainability Journal (Manuscript ID: sustainability-2926328)

 

Comments to the Author

 

This paper proposes an IoT-enabled energy-efficient ceiling fan system as part of smart technologies The authors are studying a useful research topic. However, there are several points that need to be addressed to improve the quality of the manuscript.

 

Suggestions to improve the quality of the paper are provided below:

 

1.     It is unclear the novelty of this work and how it differs from other studies in the literature. Please clearly state the novelty, and highlight the ways in which it improves upon the previous works in the Introduction section. Also, please highlight the contributions of this paper in bullet points.

 

2.     The current literature reviewed by the manuscript is very limited and needs to be improved. In the smart building technologies field, there are basically 3 main categories, which I suggest highlighting them in the introduction. These are:

 [1] Smart HVAC (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apenergy.2023.120936),

 [2] Smart Lighting (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enbuild.2017.09.001)  

 [3] Smart Plug Loads (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.buildenv.2022.109472)

 

Please review these well-established studies above as part of your review in the introduction to present a complete overview to readers.

 

3.     Please improve the caption of Figure 1. “System description” is not very informative, and not much described in the figure. You can consider replacing it with “System components” and explain the relationship of different components in one sentence as a caption. Also, DHR, IR, PIR are almost impossible to read, please adjust the resolution accordingly.

 

4.     More details need to be provided for the Machine learning section of the paper. Why Random Forest is chosen? What are the deployment settings? What are the evaluation metrics? Which are the different classes for speed levels?

 

5. The same comment applies to feature importance. How are the importance scores calculated? Which feature selection algorithm is employed? I also suggest providing a bit of background on feature selection algorithms, as part of this background two useful readings to highlight: (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.buildenv.2022.109689) and (https://doi.org/10.3390/s20082350)

 

6.     In the conclusion, please mention the limitations of the proposed methodology and how it can be improved as part of future works.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

The level of English is acceptable.

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Dear Authors

Your research is good, but there are many works and products about it,  and without using internet. If you want to improve your design, you must implement a circuit with a cache memory, where is stored the must common routines of the house occupants, in the case the fan does not have access to Internet. 

Another aspect is the statistic  analysis, you are talking about AIoT, in your research is missing a deep analysis of the application of IA. 

 

 

 

 

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This article proposes an IoT circuit equipped with ESP8266 microcontroller, temperature, humidity and motion sensors, which is suitable for the use of fans. Compared with traditional air conditioning ceiling fans, fans with added smart functions will reduce energy loss by nearly 50% and reduce carbon dioxide emissions during fan use. The paper can be published after revising the following comments:

1. In the energy efficiency section of Section 3.3, energy consumption units should be described in more detail. Only the energy consumption of the fan itself or some small electromechanical equipment used for control is included in the calculation?

2. In Section 3.4, how are CO2 reductions calculated?

3. For fan users, cost is considered a very important issue and the cost of this research application should be discussed;

4. Mechanical energy collection technology plays an important role in energy saving in daily scenarios such as fan use. It is recommended that the author appropriately increase the discussion in this field, Advanced Energy Materials, 2023, 2300557; Applied Energy, 2024, 122524;

5. Now that the application has been launched, can you provide actual pictures of the prototype application based on the application scenario? Yes, it will be easier for readers to understand.

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 4 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The manuscript is a well-structured and professionally presented  technical and engineering paper in general. The practical problems, the design of a proposed AIoT system, its application and results are clearly articulated in details.  The manuscript is constructive and interessting to readers of the journal.
Followings are some questions and suggestions:
1. Experiment data should be described and explained，such as the data in Fig. 13, how the authors get the two total consumed enegy number with the two types fans of the AC inductor fans and the BLDC celing fans.
2. One of the innovative design of the proposed AIoT system is using AI. Please write about the use of machine learning more and in details, such as the data sources, sizes and the algorithm models.
3. Please rationalize the number 83% in the line 360, where and how it is gotten.
4. Simply and shorten some descriptions, such as Section 2.3;
5. Some minor defects:
give the complete words of the acronym PIR (line 77);
delete the colon of the subsection title 2.2 (line 132), 2.3 etc.

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Thank you for addressing my comments and suggestions carefully. The revised manuscript is ready for publication.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,
Thank you for taking the time to review the revised manuscript of the paper “Design and Experimental Results of an AIoT-enabled, Energy-Efficient Ceiling Fan System” submitted on 5 March 2024 in Sustainability.

Kind regards,
Hashim Raza Khan, Wajahat Ahmed, Urooj Alam, Wasiq Masud, Kamran Arshad, Khaled Assaleh and Saad Ahmed Qazi

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Dear Authors

It is much better, but improve the quality of image and figures.

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf