BDS/IMU Integrated Auto-Navigation System of Orchard Spraying Robot
, Jinqi Huang 2, Jingxin Xie 1,2, Xu Xiao 1,2, Gang Yin 2, Xiayu Wang 3, Ming Li 1,2,* and Kui Fang 1,*Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The paper reports the development of system for the integration of the data of BeiDou satellite navigation system with real time differential correction (RTK) and an Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU), both applied to an orchard sprayer robot, in order to improve the accuracy in both positioning and deviation in the trajectory. Once the accuracy of the integrated system has been improved compared to the RTK BeiDou satellite navigation system (BDS) only, the robot has been field-tested to verify the proposed autonomous navigation system.
The results obtained are interesting and open to further development for practical application so, in my opinion the paper is acceptable with major revisions.
However, Authors should improve the quality of flow diagrams (Figures 1, 3, 4) by increasing the text size and resolution. The text size of the axis labels, the values of the axis and the legend (Figures 10, 11, 13, 14) should also be increased to facilitate the reader.
In addition, some comparisons with similar research applied to other agricultural machinery or other navigation systems should be added to the discussion. Finally, the conclusion must be verified (points 1 and 2 are the same) and the main results should be summarized here.
Specific comments
Line 47: The reference [13] have not Oscar among the authors in the list of references. Please, verify this reference.
Line 64: “Ma chi et al.” should be “Ma Chi et al.”
Line 109: I subject to change the comma after “four parts” with a colon.
Line 132-133: Please, leave a blank space between “of” and “±” and between “2” and “g” in the line 132. Please, verify these mistakes along all text.
Lines 133-134: Please, check the measurement unit of the noise density. Sorry, but I have some doubts about the exponent -½ for Hz.
Line 139: Where is indicated “r” in the figure? If this is not visible and is not recalled after, in my opinion, is better do not insert it in the text.
Line 222: “Gaussian nose” should be “Gaussian noise”.
Line 270: “Figure 8 should be Figure 7.
Figure 7: Although identifiable, I think it’s best to identify OC in the figure.
Figure 10: Authors should try to explain the reason for signal variation in the last part of (d).
Lines 345-347: I do not find any correspondence between the values reported in the text and the graphs in Figure 11 referring to the position.
Line 454: Please, check the reference 18. “Journal” do not should be in the title of the article.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
The subject is interesting and relevant to the field of this journal. On the other hand, the paper has some key omissions that have to be corrected before it is suitable for publication.
The language should be further improved by a native English speaker.
The authors don’t present not at all the robotic platform. I believe that will be useful for the reader to have a clear view of the robotic platform and its technical characteristics. Please give more information.
Section 3.3 “Auto-navigation performances in orchard” is too cryptic. The results are not presented in an understandable way. This section should be rewritten more analytically. There are no critical comments on the results.
Also, the Discussion section is extremely small. The authors should discuss in this section all the useful conclusions derived from the experimental procedure. This section should be rewritten more analytically.
I believe that it’s quite useful for the quality of the manuscript to compare this work with other similar works and present the points in which the existing system excels or not in relation to other systems.
The Conclusions are very poor and are not suitable, should give more useful conclusions.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
The Authors have been accepted all the comments proposed in the previous revision step and the paper is improved. In my opinion it is acceptable after minor revision. In fact, the Authors should carefully check the text to eliminate some mistakes.
For example:
Line 137: It should be “of ± 1000 °/s” and not “of± 1000 °/s”.
Line 143: It should be “which control the servo motor rotation” and not “which controlled r the servo motor rotation”.
Lines 311-315: In my opinion D1 should be the “minimum” safe distance and not the “maximum” safe distance. In addition, the Authors should keep the same symbols throughout the text (D1 is different from D1).
Author Response
we carefully checked the text. Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
No comments for the authors.
Author Response
we carefully checked the text and revised spell.
