Design and Experiment of an Independent Leg-Type Chassis Vehicle Attitude Adjustment System
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for Authors1. Introduction: As the authors mention, we know the importance of ridge creation in agriculture, but it is not possible to fully understand from the text how the platform they are developing will contribute to improving this work. Is this platform a prototype or not? It is not possible to fully grasp whether this technology can be used in actual agriculture. The objective of this study should be clearly defined and explained.
2. 2.1. Structure and Principle of the Whole Machine: The LiDAR is installed at the front of the vehicle. The measurement accuracy is dependent on the location of the LiDAR sensor. Why didn’t you install it at the center of the vehicle?
3. Figure 9: The caption and unit for both axes should be added.
4. Figure 15: The quality of the figure is too bad. All the letters cannot easily distinguish each other. The caption and unit for both axes should be added. Units for all the parameters are not indicated. Readers cannot understand the meaning of the graph.
5. Figure 16: The ultrasonic sensor used here has an accuracy of a few centimeters. It has a very stable output, but does this result correspond to an actual field? Would the same results be obtained if the soil surface was not flat? Experiments under different conditions are also necessary.
6. Figure 17: The scale of the vertical and horizontal axis should be added in the left figure. The caption and unit for both axes should be added.
Author Response
Comment 1: Introduction: As the authors mention, we know the importance of ridge creation in agriculture, but it is not possible to fully understand from the text how the platform they are developing will contribute to improving this work. Is this platform a prototype or not? It is not possible to fully grasp whether this technology can be used in actual agriculture. The objective of this study should be clearly defined and explained.
Response: Thank you for pointing out this. We agree with this comment. Therefore, we clearly explain the objectives of this study in the introduction and point out that the platform designed in this study is important for improving the passability, adaptability and stability of agricultural equipment working on ridges. Meanwhile, this platform is developed and designed by our group, and field trials have shown that this platform can be practically used in agricultural production. We ensure that our introduction effectively conveys the background, purpose and significance of this study. We have added the suggested content to the revised draft on page 3, lines 5-9 and 16-21. We appreciate your comments and will ensure that changes are made accordingly.
Comment 2: 2.1. Structure and Principle of the Whole Machine: The LiDAR is installed at the front of the vehicle. The measurement accuracy is dependent on the location of the LiDAR sensor. Why didn’t you install it at the center of the vehicle?
Response: Thank you for your review comments. Regarding the discussion on the installation position of LiDAR, this platform takes into account the need to scan the characteristics of the ridges according to the LiDAR, and at the same time to adjust the platform attitude according to the characteristics of the ridges, so the platform needs to be scanned to obtain the characteristics of the ridges before it enters the ridges. At the same time, the 2D LiDAR used in this study can only be installed under the platform if it is installed in the centre of the platform, and the ground clearance under the platform is small, so the LiDAR scanning effect is not good. To sum up, the LiDAR is mounted at the front of the platform.
Comment 3: Figure 9: The caption and unit for both axes should be added.
Response: Thank you for pointing this out. We agree with this comment. Therefore, we have added the axis titles and units of Figure 9 to the revised manuscript.
Comment 4: Figure 15: The quality of the figure is too bad. All the letters cannot easily distinguish each other. The caption and unit for both axes should be added. Units for all the parameters are not indicated. Readers cannot understand the meaning of the graph.
Response: Thanks for pointing out this. We agree that this is an issue that needs to be addressed, and we have therefore uploaded clearer images in a revised version of the manuscript, supplemented with the necessary axis titles and units.
Comment 5: Figure 16: The ultrasonic sensor used here has an accuracy of a few centimeters. It has a very stable output, but does this result correspond to an actual field? Would the same results be obtained if the soil surface was not flat? Experiments under different conditions are also necessary.
Response: Thank you for your valuable feedback. Figure 16 shows the results of data obtained from trials on field ploughs after rotary ploughing. We agree that there is a need to carry out tests under different conditions, so we have added the results of the test on a field plot without rotary ploughing. After the comparison of the experimental results, it can be seen that under the two conditions of rotary ploughing and non-rotary ploughing, the raw data obtained by the ultrasonic ranging module are processed by the Kalman filter and the Kalman filter fusion algorithm to produce similar results. We have added the suggested content to the revised manuscript on Line 17-24, Page 16. We appreciate your input and will ensure the appropriate revisions are made accordingly.
Comment 6: Figure 17: The scale of the vertical and horizontal axis should be added in the left figure. The caption and unit for both axes should be added.
Response: Thank you very much for your comments. However, the images on the left side in Text Figure 17 are all point cloud maps of the contours of the ridge actually scanned by the LiDAR, without the axes and corresponding scales, axis titles and units.
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments and Suggestions for Authors1: Since the sensors of LiDAR are also subject to vibration and shaking in actual operation, is it possible to install LiDAR on a gimbal to avoid this situation
2: The author mentioned that the main working environment of this platform is the soil ridges in the southern hilly areas. When working, I often face uphill scenarios to prepare for platform height measurement. However, in actual operations, even when the slope is not steep, I still need to work downhill. At this time, I also need to consider the impact of the center of gravity on the operation
Author Response
Comment 1: Since the sensors of LiDAR are also subject to vibration and shaking in actual operation, is it possible to install LiDAR on a gimbal to avoid this situation.
Response: Thank you for asking about the vibration and shaking that the LiDAR is subject to in practice. I believe that LiDAR does have the effect of vibration and shaking during the actual operation, therefore, this study utilises sliding window filtering for data processing when using LiDAR for data scanning, and sieves out the salient values, which can better mitigate external effects such as vibration and shaking. And we added in the first line of the second paragraph on page 7 that vehicle vibration can also generate interference data, making the article more rigorous.
Comment 2: The author mentioned that the main working environment of this platform is the soil ridges in the southern hilly areas. When working, I often face uphill scenarios to prepare for platform height measurement. However, in actual operations, even when the slope is not steep, I still need to work downhill. At this time, I also need to consider the impact of the center of gravity on the operation.
Response: Thanks for this suggestion. It would have been interesting to explore this aspect. The centre of gravity of this platform has been considered at the beginning of the design, and the centre of gravity of this platform is at the centre of the platform, which can be regarded as symmetrical on the left and right, so that this platform has the same effect of leveling the body and measuring the height when going uphill and going downhill.
