Automatic Aluminum Alloy Surface Grinding Trajectory Planning of Industrial Robot Based on Weld Seam Recognition and Positioning
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The paper presents an approach for the automatic aluminum alloy surface grinding trajectory planning of industrial robot based on weld seam recognition and positioning. The topics of the paper are interesting. However, the following points need to be carefully considered to improve the quality of the work.
1) The main novelties of the paper should be better described and highlighted, especially with respect to similar works on the topic. The advantages and disadvantages of the proposed approach should be clearly summarized.
2) The results should be improved. More details and analysis should be performed on the final surfaces. How does the quality of the results depend on the speed of the robot tool, on the pressure of the robot, and on other parameters? Can the quality of the results be predicted by knowing the processing parameters in advance? How is the thickness of the processed surface distributed over the area after grinding? A statistical analysis of the results (over a large set of surfaces) is needed to improve the analysis of the performance of the system.
3) Further details on the control of the robot, the trajectory planning, and motion law used in the experimental tests should be added to the manuscript. How is the robot controlled and programmed?
4) It is not clear how the grinding process can be simulated. It seems only the path of the robot is simulated.
5) The role of the mobile platform shown in Figure 1 is not clear.
6) It is not clear why some sentences of the manuscript are highlighted in yellow.
7) The quality of the figures should be improved. The units of measure should be added to the axis of all the graph plots. In Figure 15, the font size should be increased. In Figures 17, 19, 22, 23, 25, 26 captions should be added to all subfigures to define the different time instances. Axis labels should be added to Figure 27.
8) The literature review should be improved by considering additional works on the topic. Furthermore, it would be interesting to discuss whether the proposed approach for the trajectory planning could be applied to other industrial tasks, as for instance spray painting. Some suggested references to be added to the literature review are the following:
· Trigatti, G., Boscariol, P., Scalera, L., Pillan, D., Gasparetto, A. (2019). A look-ahead trajectory planning algorithm for spray painting robots with non-spherical wrists. In Mechanism Design for Robotics: Proceedings of the 4th IFToMM Symposium on Mechanism Design for Robotics (pp. 235-242). Springer International Publishing.
· Gleeson, D., Jakobsson, S., Salman, R., Ekstedt, F., Sandgren, N., Edelvik, F., ... Lennartson, B. (2022). Generating optimized trajectories for robotic spray painting. IEEE Transactions on Automation Science and Engineering, 19(3), 1380-1391.
· Zhang, B., Wu, J., Wang, L., Yu, Z. (2020). Accurate dynamic modeling and control parameters design of an industrial hybrid spray-painting robot. Robotics and Computer-Integrated Manufacturing, 63, 101923.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
1. The contribution of this article is unclear. Compared with the existing results, what is the uniqueness and innovation of this paper?
2. At present, there are many achievements in trajectory planning, and the proposed method is not compared with the latest achievements.
3. The differences between simulation and experiment are not discussed in detail.
4. The theoretical contribution of this paper is not clearly described.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
The paper presents a practical method for automatic grinding of aluminium alloy surfaces, which is based on the recognition and positioning of weld seams. The method is interesting and has a high potential for practical application.
In the second part of the paper, a spatial spiral trajectory for complex surface grinding is proposed. This approach is somewhat forced, since in practice robot trajectory programming software packages (such as Robo DK, used in the paper) can automatically generate various machining trajectories based on the (known) 3D model of the part. It should be argued what advantages the method proposed by the authors brings over what Robo DK offers, for example.
There is a contradiction between the platform used for the simulation (a KUKA robot) and the platform used for the experimental tests (it is not clear from Figure 21 whether the robot used is also a KUKA robot, it does not look like one). This should be clarified by the authors.
There are also some editing problems pointed out below:
Figure 1: What does “workpiece ce” mean?
Figure 3: “binary image” instead of “baniry image”
Figures 7, 8 and 10 are unjustifiably large
Figures 16-19 are practically redundant.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
The paper was not improved with respect to the previous version. The authors should carefully implement major improvements to the paper considering all the points raised by the reviewer in the previous round of revision:
1) The main novelties of the paper should be better described and highlighted, especially with respect to similar works on the topic. The advantages and disadvantages of the proposed approach should be clearly summarized.
2) The results should be improved. More details and analysis should be performed on the final surfaces. How does the quality of the results depend on the speed of the robot tool, on the pressure of the robot, and on other parameters? Can the quality of the results be predicted by knowing the processing parameters in advance? How is the thickness of the processed surface distributed over the area after grinding? A statistical analysis of the results (over a large set of surfaces) is needed to improve the analysis of the performance of the system.
3) Further details on the control of the robot, the trajectory planning, and motion law used in the experimental tests should be added to the manuscript. How is the robot controlled and programmed?
4) It is not clear how the grinding process can be simulated. It seems only the path of the robot is simulated.
5) The role of the mobile platform shown in Figure 1 is not clear.
6) The quality of the figures should be improved. The units of measure should be added to the axis of all the graph plots. In Figure 15, the font size should be increased. In Figures 17, 19, 22, 23, 25, 26 captions should be added to all subfigures to define the different time instances. Axis labels should be added to Figure 27.
7) The literature review should be improved by considering additional works on the topic. Furthermore, it would be interesting to discuss whether the proposed approach for the trajectory planning could be applied to other industrial tasks, as for instance spray painting. Some suggested references to be added to the literature review are the following:
· (2019). A look-ahead trajectory planning algorithm for spray painting robots with non-spherical wrists. In Mechanism Design for Robotics: Proceedings of the 4th IFToMM Symposium on Mechanism Design for Robotics (pp. 235-242). Springer International Publishing.
· (2020). Accurate dynamic modeling and control parameters design of an industrial hybrid spray-painting robot. Robotics and Computer-Integrated Manufacturing, 63, 101923.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Accept
Author Response
Thank you very much for recognizing my work and accepting my publication in this journal.
Reviewer 3 Report
The authors have provided argumented answers to the issues pointed by the reviewer. I consider that the paper can now be published in the journal.
Author Response
Thank you very much for recognizing my work and accepting my publication in this journal.
Round 3
Reviewer 1 Report
The paper has been somehow improved.
