Design and Experimental Testing of Extended-Range Power Supply System for 15 Horsepower Electric Tractor
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for Authors
Electric agriculture equipment has great potentials for next generation agriculture development. This manuscript, entitled Design and Experiment of Extended-Range Power Supply System for Electric Tractor, describes an electric power supply test for an extended-range electric tractor, which mainly realizes AC-DC conversion to achieve controllability and stability of power supply. This provides a good and detailed design solution for the application of an extended-range power supply architecture to electric tractors, which can contribute to the development of electrification of agricultural machinery, and can help inspiring other machinery design that requires electrification.
The manuscript is well-structured and easy to read. However, some points needs to be modified for improving the quality:　
1. the suggestion to harmonize the format of the parameters in the manuscript (e.g. Kpi and Kp_i - line 201 and Figure 5).
2. The manuscript shows a power extended system structure that implements the battery with DC/DC converter, is it possible to remove this DC/DC conversion?
3. It seems the droop control could decrease the DC bus voltage with increasing load, what are the benefits of this control?
4. Some of the parameters in Figure 3 are not clear, and it is suggested that Figure 3 be revised.
5. It is suggested to add the belt drive parameters in lines 141-143.
6. It is recommended to further improve the grammatical expression of some of the language.
Comments on the Quality of English Language
Minor editing of English language required
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments and Suggestions for Authors
This paper presented design method for the extended-range power supply in electric tector. It is technically sound paper. The design checks the current control, voltage control and droop control. Experimental results presented and inline with simulation.
- What are the limitations of the hardware/design?
- Mention the mathematical model parameters with variable assigned in a table.
- What are various methods or available techniques in literature and their limitations? Can be listed via table or summary in introduction
-The start-up process is tested at different speeds of 1400r/min, 1800r/min, 2200r/min, and 2600r/min. However, it should be verified with low rmp, speed say, 500r/min.
Comments on the Quality of English Language
Overall it is okay.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
Comments and Suggestions for Authors
Experiment of Extended-range Power Supply System for Electric Tractor
The article is of a technical nature. As an economist, I do not understand all the details and therefore cannot give a final assessment. Nevertheless, there are a few questions that should be addressed before publication.
1. Which journal is suitable for publication? “Machines” seems more suitable here than, for example, “Agriculture”.
2. The title should state that the experiments are based on a small tractor.
3. Not all abbreviations are listed in the list of abbreviations at the end of the article, e.g. AC-DC, PTO, are missing.
4. Key points that should be discussed are
- Who is the recipient of the results, is it research, industry, farmers?
- Can the results be transferred to larger machines?
- What advantage does this technology have in terms of the CO2 balance? Can CO2 emissions be reduced, otherwise one would continue to use combustion engines.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments and Suggestions for Authors
The comments are properly responded and incorporated the necessary changes in the current version. No further comments.
Comments on the Quality of English Language
Overall the english is okay.
