Systematic Review of Exoskeletons towards a General Categorization Model Proposal

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

In this review article, the authors described a general categorization model of systematic study of exoskeletons. After a brief introduction of the history and development of exoskeleton technology, they discussed a methodology to summarize some representative (~ 75) research outcomes in the area: specifically, body part, structure, action, power technology, purpose, and application area were categorized and compared. The authors concluded by stating that such categorization could be generalized to apply in all exoskeletons that are made or still in progress. This is an interesting piece of review as it focused on methodology rather than actual research work, which presented the readers a quick statistics overview of the entire industry. Considering the workload that was invested, I recommend acceptance after the authors consider the following revision comments.

1. Section 1. Introduction. Instead of the plain language describing the chronology of exoskeleton, the authors may consider include a figure such as a timeline to snapshot the evolution of exoskeleton. This should provide a more intuitive feeling to the audience who are not necessarily in the field.
2. Some of the figures contained format that does not make sense or not being consistent. For example, Figure 8 used a 3D histogram, but it really only needed a 2D one. Some pie charts (Figures 7, 10, 11) are colored, but Figure 9 is in gray scale. Figures 14 and 15 contained words that are too small to read.
3. Minor English modification is required as some parts are hard to following. For example, "From 2010 to 2015, were published 3147 book sections, journal or conference articles concerning 129 exoskeletons indexed in Scopus".

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

The following response is the same as in the attachment.

Firstly, we are grateful to reviewer #1 whose comments helped us to significantly improve the overall quality of this manuscript. According to the reviewer #1 comments, we try our best to check and revise this paper very carefully again. All revised parts are expressed (highlighted) as yellow color in the .PDF File, and now here we list all the modifications as follows.

 Reviewer 1 | 07 Dec 2020

1. Section 1. Introduction. Instead of the plain language describing the chronology of exoskeleton, the authors may consider include a figure such as a timeline to snapshot the evolution of exoskeleton. This should provide a more intuitive feeling to the audience who are not necessarily in the field.
2. Some of the figures contained format that does not make sense or not being consistent. For example, Figure 8 used a 3D histogram, but it really only needed a 2D one. Some pie charts (Figures 7, 10, 11) are colored, but Figure 9 is in gray scale. Figures 14 and 15 contained words that are too small to read.
3. Minor English modification is required as some parts are hard to following. For example, "From 2010 to 2015, were published 3147 book sections, journal or conference articles concerning 129 exoskeletons indexed in Scopus".

Comments

1. “Section 1. Introduction. Instead of the plain language describing the chronology of exoskeleton, the authors may consider include a figure such as a timeline to snapshot the evolution of exoskeleton. This should provide a more intuitive feeling to the audience who are not necessarily in the field.“

The section 1 has been reviewed and we have included a graphical representation with a chronological timeline as suggested by the reviewer

 

1. “Some of the figures contained format that does not make sense or not being consistent. For example, Figure 8 used a 3D histogram, but it really only needed a 2D one. Some pie charts (Figures 7, 10, 11) are colored, but Figure 9 is in gray scale. Figures 14 and 15 contained words that are too small to read.”

We changed the format of Figure 8 to a 2D histogram, while the pie chart of Figure 9, we changed the colors. Also, we remade Figure 14 and 15, in order to make the words larger and clearer to read.

1. “Minor English modification is required as some parts are hard to following. For example, "From 2010 to 2015, were published 3147 book sections, journal or conference articles concerning 129 exoskeletons indexed in Scopus"”

We checked the entire document, reading and changing the parts where were hard to follow.

Another change that was suggested to us by the assistant editor was to delete the graphical abstract, because the graphical abstract couldn’t be as same as the figures in the main text.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Dear Authors

The article belongs to the review category. The Authors dealt with an interesting area of compiling and systematizing research work on the improvement of exoskeletons. Much work has been done on the content in terms of not only the description of exoskeletons and their categorization, but also the dominant scientific institutions and scientists dealing with these issues. This is a good take down that is helpful for other scientists. It is appropriate for this work to be published in this journal. Before that, the Authors have to make minor corrections:

• Figure captions should be short. All kinds of comments should be included in the main text.
• Some of the presented Figures haven't reference in the text (e.g. Fig. 7, 8, 9 and 11).
• The Authors, commenting on the presented Figures, don't follow the rule: “Figures should be placed in the main text near to the first time they are cited” (see applsci-template).
• The same remark applies to the tables (see Tables should be placed in the main text near to the first time they are cited).
• Rather, Figure 16 is a Table.

The general attention is paid to the quality of the Figures. Descriptions are illegible (lowercase). This pollutes the content (e.g. Fig. 14 or 15). Note the style of the Tables. Other minor corrections should be made, e.g. acronyms and abbreviations, etc., format must to the guidelines included in the template. Finally, I recommend this article for publication with making minor corrections.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

The following response is the same as in the attachment.

Firstly, we are grateful to reviewer #2 whose comments helped us to significantly improve the overall quality of this manuscript. According to the reviewer #2 comments, we try our best to check and revise this paper very carefully again. All revised parts are expressed (highlighted) as yellow color in the .PDF File, and now here we list all the modifications as follows.

 Reviewer 2 | 06 Dec 2020

1. Figure captions should be short. All kinds of comments should be included in the main text.

2. Some of the presented Figures haven't reference in the text (e.g. Fig. 7, 8, 9 and 11).
3. The Authors, commenting on the presented Figures, don't follow the rule: “Figures should be placed in the main text near to the first time they are cited” (see applsci-template).
4. The same remark applies to the tables (see Tables should be placed in the main text near to the first time they are cited).
5. Rather, Figure 16 is a Table.
6. The general attention is paid to the quality of the Figures. Descriptions are illegible (lowercase). This pollutes the content (e.g. Fig. 14 or 15). Note the style of the Tables. Other minor corrections should be made, e.g. acronyms and abbreviations, etc., format must to the guidelines included in the template.

Comments

1. “Figure captions should be short. All kinds of comments should be included in the main text..“

In all the sections of the article, the figure captions have been shortened and included in the main text.

2. “Some of the presented Figures haven't reference in the text (e.g. Fig. 7, 8, 9 and 11).”

We checked the references in the text for all figures and now each figure is referenced at least one time in the main text.

3. “The Authors, commenting on the presented Figures, don't follow the rule: “Figures should be placed in the main text near to the first time they are cited” (see applsci-template).”
4. The same remark applies to the tables (see Tables should be placed in the main text near to the first time they are cited).

We changed the figures and now each figure and table are cited in the main text near to the first time they are called. However, only Figure 6 is cited in text before it appears on the main text, because the tables 1 and 2 do not allow to place the cite closer to Figure 6. Changing the place of the tables 1 and 2 would change the order of the article, thus we leave the cite of Figure 6 as close as we could to Figure 6.

5. Rather, Figure 16 is a Table.

We changed the name of Figure 16 and called it now Table 3.

6. The general attention is paid to the quality of the Figures. Descriptions are illegible (lowercase). This pollutes the content (e.g. Fig. 14 or 15). Note the style of the Tables. Other minor corrections should be made, e.g. acronyms and abbreviations, etc., format must to the guidelines included in the template.

We improved the quality of the Figures, if a reader wants to read the details of each figure, the quality is not a problem while zooming it. Also, we remade Figure 14 and 15, in order to make the words larger and clearer to read in the main text.

Another change that was suggested to us by the assistant editor was to delete the graphical abstract, because the graphical abstract couldn’t be as same as the figures in the main text.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf