A Methodology and Experimental Implementation for Industrial Robot Health Assessment via Torque Signature Analysis
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The industrial robots are very important for production automation and its failure might, to the worst case, cause shut down and damage of the production line. Therefore, how to monitor and to have early warning on the health of the robots has become very important for a healthy production line with robots.
This manuscript has found that the fifth axis would be the most influential failure source of the robot. The "Current" has been adopted for the monitoring of the robot health status and proved to be very successful. The following suggestions are listed to enhance the readability and thoroughness of this manuscript:
- Description of the adopted algorithms and or methods in this manuscript. For example, the statistical methods and/or artificial intelligence algorithms.
- What are the forms/formats of the historical data and how these data were organized for the adopted algorithms/methods to be applicable for analysis.
Author Response
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Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
The authors have presented an interesting paper in the field of predictive maintenance for robotics. The paper is at a good level and has potential. Moreover, the structure of the paper is correct but some revisions should be addressed in order to enhance the quality of the paper.
Comment 1: The contribution and the novelty of the paper should be addressed in a more detailed manner especially by the time the authors have identified a similar paper and extend the measurement method by the installation of sensors.
Comment 2: The literature background of the paper should be enriched with more publications especially focused on the data acquisition techniques and further analysis. Therefore, some useful papers in the Industry 4.0 field are listed below:
- Mourtzis, N. Milas, N. Athinaios “Towards Machine 4.0: General Machine Model for CNC machines through OPC-UA”, Open Access Procedia CIRP, 6th CIRP Global Web Conference – Envisaging the future manufacturing, design, technologies and systems in innovation era (CIRPe 2018), Vol 78, pp. 301-306, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.procir.2018.09.045
- Mourtzis, E. Vlachou, N. Milas, “Industrial Big Data as a result of IoT adoption in Manufacturing”, CIRPe 2016, 5th CIRP Global Web Conference, Open Access Procedia CIRP, (2016), Vol. 55, pp. 290-295, DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.procir.2016.07.038 (1.809 αναγνÏŽσεις στο ResearchGate)
- Gregory W. Vogl, Matthew Calamari, Sean Ye, M. Alkan Donmez, A Sensor-based Method for Diagnostics of Geometric Performance of Machine Tool Linear Axes, Procedia Manufacturing, Volume 5, 2016, Pages 621-633, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.promfg.2016.08.051.
Comment 3: Please add a flowchart with a step-by-step explanation of the proposed experimental approach.
Comment 4: Figure 3 and 11 should be elaborated in a detailed manner. The current version is not appropriate for a research journal with high impact factor. Please add all the necessary level of information. Moreover, you may use a CAD file instead of the sketch presented n Fig. 3.
Comment 5: The authors should present a separate section with the relevant literature and explanation of the RUL calculation.
Comment 6: The authors should include future work ideas in the conclusions section.
Comment 7: The authors have presented a model that can be applied in all kinds of robots. However, it is suggested to highlight the limitations of the current work.
Comment 8: The authors should enhance the literature background of the paper and present some details about the Communication protocols that are used to collect the data from the sensors.
Comment 9: The authors should present in a more detailed manner the sensors that are used in this experimental approach.
Comment 10: It is suggested to use passive voice and avoid the first person in the body of the paper.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
The authors have addressed most of the comments. The Introduction with the addition of the novelty and the contribution of the paper has been improved. Next, the Literature background has been enriched with Industry 4.0 publications focused on IoT and communication protocols. Next, the flowchart of the experimental procedure is an important addition to the paper. The paper is at a good level but the Figure 5 and especially Figure 12 should be elaborated in a major way. The architecture of the proposed framework presented in Fig. 12 should be described in a more scientific manner. To sum up, the quality of the paper has been improved but there are some additional issues that should be addressed by the authors.
Comment 1: The authors have added the flowchart of the experiment procedure (Figure 1). However, the description of the Flowchart is done within the content of Section 2. Experimental design and implementation. Therefore, it is suggested to move and include Figure 1 in Section II.
Comment 2: The authors are asked to present a more detailed Figure (2D CAD Design or Sketch) of the motor brake. The simple Schematic of the motor brake presented in Figure 5 can be improved towards the standards of journal with high impact factor.
Comment 3: Figure 12 should be elaborated in a major way. This Figure does not present a detailed architecture of the proposed methodology. Each step should be clearly described both in Text and in figure/caption. It is suggested to avoid general phrases like “Time passes by and the robot keeps working – Step 5”.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
