Omni Wheel Arrangement Evaluation Method Using Velocity Moments
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
This paper presents a design method for omni wheel robots with asymmetric wheel arrangement, which can improve the maneuverability of the robot to a certain extent and ensure that it can accomplish precise motion in narrow scenes; specifically, the author propose a method for estimating the direction of the robot's linear advancement by using the balance of velocity moments. The rationality of the method is carried out by 4- and 6-wheel omni-wheel robotic platforms. The results show that the robot can achieve straight ahead by velocity moment balancing.
The following suggestions are made here: the abstract section should reflect the innovation of the article as much as possible; the conclusion section can reflect the scientific rationality of the experimental results through data in addition to the qualitative description.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
We are incredibly grateful for your taking the time to review our manuscript and your insightful comments. They made us realize our manuscript's inadequacies, clarity, and mistakes.
Reviewer comments were cited in point form according to the entry example provided by MDPI. Responses to each point are listed below each statement, and comparisons with the revised manuscript are also included. Please confirm the attachment.
We look forward to hearing from you and hope you find the revised manuscript satisfactory.
Sincerely,
Masaaki Hijikata, Renato Miyagusuku, Koichi Ozaki
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Taking leg-type robots which can move in all directions and have flexible posture control, and wheeled robots which can be efficient in operation and are limited in the directions into consideration, Omnidirectional robots installed omni wheels or mechanum wheels are proposed in this paper, because omnidirectional mobile robots move by making all the wheels act in concert. On basis of related work mentioned, omni wheel arrangement evaluation method using velocity moments are discussed in detail. Meanwhile, the author gives the equation of balance for velocity moments and derivation of Easy-to-Operate omni wheel arrangement equation by equation. Last, the author designs the hardware configuration consisting of RPi and Arduino Due, and some experiments are then conducted, and some discussions are made.
With the experiments, the omni wheel arrangement evaluation method using velocity moments are verified.
1)there are only 19 references at the end of this paper, and some of them are obsolete, it is recommended that the author can update and replenish some references about kinematics and inverse kinematics of omni wheeled robots;
2)in Fig.4, the RPi can control the robot with the wiringpi package, the Arduino Due micro controller can be removed from the hardware configuration. And the RPi can drive the motor driver in higher PWM resolutions;
3)in Abstract, the author says "However, omni wheel robots may rotate without following inverse kinematics due to the wheel arrangement". We propose that the author should move the sentences to the part of 6.Discussion.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
We are incredibly grateful for your taking the time to review our manuscript and your insightful comments. They made us realize our manuscript's inadequacies, clarity, and mistakes.
Reviewer comments were cited in point form according to the entry example provided by MDPI. Responses to each point are listed below each statement, and comparisons with the revised manuscript are also included. Please confirm the attachment.
We look forward to hearing from you and hope you find the revised manuscript satisfactory.
Sincerely,
Masaaki Hijikata, Renato Miyagusuku, Koichi Ozaki
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
This a very well written article. In terms of content, I do not have many comments, but some elements should be improved:
- English needs to be corrected, a lot of unclear wording, I'm not an expert in that field, but I recommend reading the article a few times carefully
- The introduction needs to be extended: please specify where exactly mobile robots with omni wheels are used; please expand the description of the differences between robots with omni and mecanum wheels; in what situations the asymmetric configuration of wheels in Omni robots is used?; the minimum number of wheels in Omni robots is three, so why use more?
- Lines 124 to 126: why is it assumed that the force generated by the omni wheels is proportional to the speed of the wheels? I can guess why, but it's an important issue, and this needs to be answered clearly.
- The graphs in Figures 8 and 7 are illegible, they all look exactly the same, and the range of differences is very small in relation to the range of values shown in each graph. My recommendation is to skip Figures 7, 8 and stay with the next figures because the graphs in figures 9, 10, and 11 are understandable and legible.
- Remove summary comments made in the conclusion, some of them can be moved to the discussion section.
- Also the reason for undertaking the research is very general, it should be explained in more detail (e.g. line 34-35).
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
We are incredibly grateful for your taking the time to review our manuscript and your insightful comments. They made us realize our manuscript's inadequacies, clarity, and mistakes.
Reviewer comments were cited in point form according to the entry example provided by MDPI. Responses to each point are listed below each statement, and comparisons with the revised manuscript are also included. Please confirm the attachment.
We look forward to hearing from you and hope you find the revised manuscript satisfactory.
Sincerely,
Masaaki Hijikata, Renato Miyagusuku, Koichi Ozaki
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
