Optimization on Linkage System for Vehicle Wipers by the Method of Differential Evolution

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear authors, thanks for submitting this work and for your efforts in this work. I have some critical observations that can help you to make it better.

1. Mention ADAMS in the abstract rather than superficially saying about the comparison.

2. In the “Introduction,” it would be better if authors first explain what linkage systems are and why they are essential instead of directly starting from goals.

3. No “Literature Review” section is objectionable. If I consider the literature review fused with the “Introduction” section, it is minimal. The author must have a proper introduction section and “Literature Review.” Most of the articles cited are too old.

4. Further, the authors cite multiple papers in the introduction together, which is not desirable, seeing the length of it.

5. Authors may use some block diagram of the proposed method, which would be self-explanatory.

6. Explanation of the “Results” section can be better and more innovative.

The purpose of the comments is solely to help you to improve your work and avoid future mistakes.

 

Thanks

 

Author Response

1. We mention ADAMS in the abstract of this revised version.
2. We add explanations on Linkage systems in the Introduction of this revised version.
3. We add Literature Review on DE and provide theoretical foundation for the convergence of DE. (The literature on DE is really massive.)
4. We move some discussions on wiper noise literature to the Discussion section.
5. We add figure on Crank-rocker linkage system and diagram on the usual stages of a DE search algorithm.
6. We improve the writing of the “Results” section.
7. Thank you ver much for your kind comments.

Reviewer 2 Report

The mathematical formulas on page 2 should be labelled for easy understanding of the reader. You labelled the first two equations on page 2 as class I and Class II, what about the equations that follows.

why is the objective function and the minimum of the objective function in section 2 not labelled like the mathematical equations in section 2.1.1?

In section 3, under the results, you are referring to mathematical formulas derived in section 2.1 but I can't see any mathematical formulas you are referring to in section 2.1

line 430 "is" is missing after "modelling"

part of your discussion should form part of your conclusion and recommendation section. I will appreciate if the authors can have a section on conclusion and recommendations.


Accept the article after the minor corrections are addressed. The article is a good one and novel.

Author Response

Thank you.

Reviewer 3 Report

Is the purpose of this paper simply to reduce noise? There are many problems such as the noise of the motor that drives the wiper, problems with lubricating oil at each connection part of the wiper, problems with the connection between the wiper and the glass, and problems with the material of the wiper. Have you ruled out this issue? A detailed explanation is needed for this part.

Addition of related research on the relationship between Vehicle Wiper and DE

Added content on how Vehiele Wiper and DE interact.

Please explain what are the advantages of the method using DE and the method not using DE?

Author Response

1. To the best of our knowledge, no research article on “the relationship between Vehicle Wiper and DE” was published before. However, Optimization problems on the “expectation output function” of a linkage system were considered by some people using Genetic Algorithms on MATLAB.
2. We have added “content on how Vehiele Wiper and DE interact”.
3. We have explained the advantages of using DE.

 

Reviewer 4 Report

The topic of  design of linkage systems is important for vehicle industry development. In this work,  Chen et.al  consider an optimization problem on the maximal magnitude of angular acceleration of the output‐links of a linkage system for vehicle wipers on windshield. Their goal is to improve the steadiness of a linkage system without weakening its normal function.

They demonstrate how to apply the proposed optimization procedure to a commercially available center‐driven linkage system for vehicle wipers. Finally, they show that the maximal magnitude of angular acceleration of both output‐links of the linkage system can be reduced by more than 10%.

The topic is up to date for the readers of Applied Sciences and for the vehicle industry, and the analysis seems to be correct. The presentation is high level and pedagogic, so I can recommend this paper for publication.

Author Response

Thank you.

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

I have two observations:

1.       Still, the results section can be written better, with more explanations of the plots.

 

2.       I am satisfied as the authors incorporated most of the suggestions.