Sensorial Multifunctional Panels for Smart Factory Applications

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear Authors,

Well done, this is interesting work. However, there is something missing in the paper which is the noise impact. 

You need to add a subsection or a paragraph to discuss any noise-related issues that may affect the sensors readings or the panel performance. 

 

Author Response

Thanks for the comment.

Temperature sensors, embedded in the panel, are digital devices and this choice of using digital sensors has been taken to have very low power consumption on one side, and robust communications on the other. In addition, the use of a significant number of bits in the measurement codification makes possible to read accurate data; for instance, the resolution of the temperature sensor is 0.0625 degree. Moisture sensors are resistive, but they have a low-pass filter with a very low cut-off frequency for noise filtering. Moreover, it is also worth nothing that in the considered application a extremely high resolution is not necessary; so, possible, small variations or inaccuracies of the measurement data do not affect the system performance. As a consequence, the sensing system is intrinsically robust towards noise issues and some preliminary tests have been carried out for verification with independent measurements devices and sensors, as said in Section 2 and illustrated in the example of Fig. 5 of the paper. In any case, also these further considerations have been reported in the revised manuscript.

 

 

Reviewer 2 Report

There are some typos, like defintion (instead of definition). Some sentences should be rewritten for clarity purposes. The manuscript should be copyedited and proofread by an English native speaker. 

Some quantitative detail should be added.

Author Response

Thanks for the comment.

The paper has been revised and improved, rewriting some sentences. Also typo errors have been corrected. Some data has been also included in order to prove the reliability of the proposed system.

Reviewer 3 Report

The paper is well-organized and includes all important elements. However, there is a need to improve the literature review and conclusions. There are only 11 scientific paper in the reference. In my opinion, to increase the scientific level of the paper, there is a need to complement the paper with some experimental results.  Moreover, the proposed solution has some limitations, e.g.:

1. How about safety aspects of the proposed solution? The utilization of layers of cardboard could be dangerous – paper is a very flammable material.
2. RFID range is only 12 meters when production halls are much bigger.

Author Response

Thanks for your comments.

Further references have been included and some data proving the reliability of the system have been provided in the revised paper. Also conclusions have been extended.

Authors added the following specification about fire safety and references:

Finally, the panel will be treated with a specific cardboard fireproof paint, already widely available on the market for other cardboard panels. 

• Distefano D.L., Gagliano A., Naboni E., Sapienza V., Timpanaro N. (2018). Thermophysical characterization of a cardboard emergency kit-house, Mathematical Modelling of Engineering Problems, Vol. 5, No. 3, pp. 168-174
• https://www.archicart.com/pannelli.html

About the last comment, we agree with you. 15m range is a technology limit up to now. But in practical applications, when production halls are wider and organized as open spaces, the proposed solution should be coupled with semi-passive RFID tags that allows to have wider interrogation range. A further solution should consist in the realization of small columns or totems in the open space, for instance close to danger equipments, in order to install there tags or readers and prevent dangerous actions. In general, close to equipments, no stopping points should be also towards the installation of active tags, since power supply is available and their power consumption is negligible.

These considerations have been included in the revised paper.

Round 2

Reviewer 3 Report

All of the reviewer's remarks have been taken into account. In my opinion, the paper can be accepted and published in its current form.

Author Response

Thank you