Formation Control of Unmanned Surface Vehicles Using Fixed-Time Non-Singular Terminal Sliding Mode Strategy

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear Authors, 

First of all, I would like to give you compliments for the hard work to develop this study. This paper presents an innovative and interesting topic due the trends in marine and autonomous mobility. 

The main review goes in the line of the software and hardware technology that it will support the methodology purposed. I guess that it can be interesting to dedicate a section or subsection for this question.

I don´t observe any else part to improve the manuscripth. I recommend to check the english language to avoid possible undiscovered grammar faults.

Thank you for your consideration and best whises!

Author Response

Dear Reviewer:

Thank you very much for your professional review work on our manuscript entitled “Formation Control of Unmanned Surface Vehicles Using Fixed-time Non-singular Terminal Sliding Mode Strategy” (ID: jmse-1859899). We are glad that you find this work interesting. We are very much encouraged by your positive comments.

Following your suggestion, we have thoroughly checked and corrected all presentation and low-level errors of the manuscript.

We sincerely hope that you will find the paper acceptable for publication.  We will continue to improve the paper until it meets the publication requirements.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

In this paper, authors identify a problem related to USV and present a novel solution. This solution was then tested and the results show improvements over other approaches. The paper has an high degree of complexity, namely with mathematic formulas, and has a relevant impact for the science. Although, I present some suggestions that authors should take in account to improve the overall quality and the comprehension for the readers.
1. Authors should revise the english writting. Example of citation that can be improved: to form a formation (line 4).
2. The Section 2. lacks an introduction, going directly to the different lemmas. I suggest authors to create a paragraph further explaining what will be discussed in the following subsections.
3. Before Section 3. (i.e.: lines 130-131), the paper also lacks a paragraph resuming the lessons learned from the Section 2., and explaining the sequence and relevance for the next section.
4. At the end of Section 4., authors should consider a Discussion subsection, with a wide discussion over all the work and the results, about what they represent for the problem and for the scientific community.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer:

Thank you very much for your professional review of our manuscript entitled “Formation Control of Unmanned Surface Vehicles Using Fixed-time Non-singular Terminal Sliding Mode Strategy” (ID: jmse-1859899). We appreciate the time and effort by you as well as the excellent insightful comments and valuable suggestions provided for enhancing the quality of the paper.

We have carefully revised the paper taking into consideration all the suggestions and comments given by you. Enclosed please find the rebuttal letter for your perusal.

We sincerely hope that we have addressed all the concerns by you and the paper is now acceptable for publication.

Yours sincerely

Meng Joo and Zhongkun

Author Response File: Author Response.docx