Index Matrices—Based Software Implementation of Power Electronic Circuit Design

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

1. Please show the advantages and disadvantages of the proposed method versus other numerical simulation methods.
2. The used example is rather trivial. Please show more cumbersome examples, as three phase converters. 

Author Response

First of all, we would like to thank you for the thorough review of our paper (electronics-1547314) and the useful remarks to improve it.

 

Reviewer 1

Comments and Suggestions for Authors
1.         Please show the advantages and disadvantages of the proposed method versus other numerical simulation methods.

2. The used example is rather trivial. Please show more cumbersome examples, as three phase converters.

 

To Reviewer 1:

            Thank you very much for your review and valuable remarks.

 

1. Please show the advantages and disadvantages of the proposed method versus other numerical simulation methods.

Advantages of the proposed approach are the higher speed of calculations (compared to Simulink) due to the lack of differential equations, and the simple handling of electronic components. A table with simulation durations is added. The automation on simulation steps is presented additionally in detail for methods in programming classes, and an example is given. The disadvantages of the method are due to the fact that the apparatus of indexed matrices is not very popular and the respective usage for modeling of electrical circuits in general requires additional training and development of software.

 

2. The used example is rather trivial. Please show more cumbersome examples, as three phase converters.

The main goal of the work is to demonstrate and promote the advantages of the method, not to study complex examples. Of course, in future works more complex topologies will be considered.

 

Reviewer 2 Report

The paper is not written b suitable way and in general, it doesn't meet standards of research papers. Here are my suggestions and comments to the authors:

• Abstract is written by not suitable way. It has to contains background, aims, used methods, briefly results. Please, rewrite an abstract.
• Introduction is not correct. Introduction should bring quality state of the art based on previous works in the investigated research area. Your introduction doesn't meet standards of research papers.
• Section 2: chapter should start with any description, not only with some mathematical terms. 
• There many formal mistakes such as conventions of linear algebra (matrices, vectors), way of matrix writings, etc.
• The content of the paper is not suitable. The paper is hard to read. Many of mathematical equations are not necessary at all.
• It seems that paper doesn't offer any novelty / contribution. Used approach is commonly used.

Author Response

 

Reviewer 2

First of all, we would like to thank you for the thorough review of our paper (electronics-1547314) and the useful remarks to improve it.

 

Comments and Suggestions for Authors
The paper is not written b suitable way and in general, it doesn't meet standards of research papers. Here are my suggestions and comments to the authors:

• Abstract is written by not suitable way. It has to contains background, aims, used methods, briefly results. Please, rewrite an abstract.
• Introduction is not correct. Introduction should bring quality state of the art based on previous works in the investigated research area. Your introduction doesn't meet standards of research papers.
• Section 2: chapter should start with any description, not only with some mathematical terms.
• There many formal mistakes such as conventions of linear algebra (matrices, vectors), way of matrix writings, etc.
• The content of the paper is not suitable. The paper is hard to read. Many of mathematical equations are not necessary at all.
• It seems that paper doesn't offer any novelty / contribution. Used approach is commonly used.

 

To Reviewer 2:

            Thank you for your review and valuable remarks.

 

1. The paper is not written b suitable way and in general, it doesn't meet standards of research papers. Here are my suggestions and comments to the authors:

• Abstract is written by not suitable way. It has to contains background, aims, used methods, briefly results. Please, rewrite an abstract.
• Introduction is not correct. Introduction should bring quality state of the art based on previous works in the investigated research area. Your introduction doesn't meet standards of research papers.

The manuscript is mainly edited. Abstract is rewritten. Inappropriate passages in introduction are removed.

2. Section 2: chapter should start with any description, not only with some mathematical terms.

• There many formal mistakes such as conventions of linear algebra (matrices, vectors), way of matrix writings, etc.
• The content of the paper is not suitable. The paper is hard to read. Many of mathematical equations are not necessary at all.

Appropriate corrections have been made to the text. When submitting the manuscript, the editor recommended the definitions to be given in detail and the apparatus of index matrices to be presented in general, as this method is not very often used in the technical community. On the other hand, according to your recommendation, we have removed many of the trivial formulas.

• It seems that paper doesn't offer any novelty / contribution. Used approach is commonly used.

In short, our main goal is related to an application of a relatively not very used method for automated design of power electronic devices and systems and, accordingly, the development of software applications based on this.

 

Again thank you all for the exact review. 

 

Reviewer 3 Report

My comments

1. Is the input current or voltage in Figures 1 and 2?

The Authors mentions in calculation to  a voltage source, but the symbol in the circuit is a current, so the current symbol must be changed to voltage because the input in the circuit is a current source. As shown in the figure 10 (matlab Simulink)

2. Figure 6,7 and 8 should be changed to tables, not a Figures
3. I advise Authors not to write the program within the Paper body. Can be exchanged to flowcharts

Lines ( 236 to 246) and Lines ( 262 to 282 )

Best regards 

Author Response

Reviewer 3

First of all, we would like to thank you for the thorough review of our paper (electronics-1547314) and the useful remarks to improve it.

 

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

1. Is the input current or voltage in Figures 1 and 2?

The Authors mentions in calculation to a voltage source, but the symbol in the circuit is a current, so the current symbol must be changed to voltage because the input in the circuit is a current source. As shown in the figure 10 (matlab Simulink)

2. Figure 6,7 and 8 should be changed to tables, not a Figures
3. I advise Authors not to write the program within the Paper body. Can be exchanged to flowcharts

 

 

To Reviewer 3:

 

Thank you for your review and valuable remarks.

 

1. Is the input current or voltage in Figures 1 and 2?

The Authors mentions in calculation to a voltage source, but the symbol in the circuit is a current, so the current symbol must be changed to voltage because the input in the circuit is a current source. As shown in the figure 10 (matlab Simulink)

Thank you very much for the comments. The manuscript is mainly edited. The necessary editorial corrections have been made, according to the remarks.

 

2. Figure 6,7 and 8 should be changed to tables, not a Figures

Тhe relevant content has been reformatted.

 

3. I advise Authors not to write the program within the Paper body. Can be exchanged to flowcharts. For this study, is there any limitation or assumption?

Тhe source code is removed.

Generally, some restrictions are related to the use of a less popular tool for studying power electronic devices and systems, and this fact implies a need for specific knowledge. For this purpose, the manuscript also presents a software through which to eliminate most of these requirements and to be able to apply this tool to a wider range of users.

 

 

Again thank you all for the exact review. 

 

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The authors write: "The main goal of the work is to demonstrate and promote the advantages of the method, not to study complex examples. Of course, in future works more complex topologies will be considered."

However, the significance of the proposed method depends on its capability to deal with complex examples, where the reduction in the simulation time would be important. Without that, the manuscript is not convincing, and not interesting to the journal readers.

Therefore, I would ask the authors to present a more complex circuit, e.g., a three-phase converter.

Author Response

First of all, we would like to thank you for the thorough review of our paper (electronics-1547314) and the useful remarks to improve it.

 Reviewer 1

Comments and Suggestions for Authors
The authors write: "The main goal of the work is to demonstrate and promote the advantages of the method, not to study complex examples. Of course, in future works more complex topologies will be considered."

However, the significance of the proposed method depends on its capability to deal with complex examples, where the reduction in the simulation time would be important. Without that, the manuscript is not convincing, and not interesting to the journal readers.

Therefore, I would ask the authors to present a more complex circuit, e.g., a three-phase converter.

 

To Reviewer 1:

            Thank you very much for your review and valuable remarks.

 

The authors write: "The main goal of the work is to demonstrate and promote the advantages of the method, not to study complex examples. Of course, in future works more complex topologies will be considered."

However, the significance of the proposed method depends on its capability to deal with complex examples, where the reduction in the simulation time would be important. Without that, the manuscript is not convincing, and not interesting to the journal readers.

Therefore, I would ask the authors to present a more complex circuit, e.g., a three-phase converter.

Models on a three-phase converter in the authors’ software and Simulink are presented. A respective table with simulation durations is added. Тhe relationship between the simulation time and the model time is linear. There is а good scalability and reduction in the simulation time in case of the authors’ software.

Reviewer 2 Report

Some answers of the authors should be more exmplained. The main problem of the paper is with its novelty.

Author Response

First of all, we would like to thank you for the thorough review of our paper (electronics-1547314) and the useful remarks to improve it.

Reviewer 2

Comments and Suggestions for Authors
Some answers of the authors should be more exmplained. The main problem of the paper is with its novelty.

 

To Reviewer 2:

            Thank you for your review and valuable remarks.

 

Some answers of the authors should be more exmplained. The main problem of the paper is with its novelty.

The authors are not aware of any other articles, except those written by them and [18], in which electrical circuits to be modeled with index matrices and their functioning to be simulated in proper manner with implementation of this apparatus.

The following text is added in Section 2:

“The apparatus of the indexed matrices (IMs) is not very popular. The respective concept was introduced in 1984 [14]. IMs have been used for a long time as an auxiliary tool for describing transitions of generalized nets only; their values are Boolean values and predicates in case of conditions on token passes, and integer in case of arc capacities [15 – 17]. Generalized nets are present in areas where modeling with Petri nets is not typical (for example, medicine and biotechnology). Indeed, it is impossible for generalized nets developed for their purposes to be replaced by Petri nets; the difference in the possibilities provided by the two formalisms is especially clear – the classes of tasks to be solved are completely different. The latter fact is also due to the use of IMs. Although basic properties of IMs have been studied in [10, 11], a full review on their application is not written yet. Their usage in modeling of electrical circuits is very rare (an example is given in [18]), and their implementation requires additional training and development of process automation software.” 

Round 3

Reviewer 1 Report

It seems to me that the authors did not answer my question.  

Author Response

First of all, we would like to thank you for the thorough review of our paper (electronics-1547314) and the useful remarks to improve it.

 Reviewer 1

Comments and Suggestions for Authors in Round  3:
It seems to me that the authors did not answer my question.  

To Reviewer 1:

            Thank you very much for your review and valuable remarks. They help us to develop our model. We did more precise experiments on larger samples. More simulations (in the authors’ software and for Simulink models respectively) are done. The model computational scalability is shown in order the proposed approach to be proven as applicable for more complex power systems.

 It seems to me that the authors did not answer my question.  

Since we did not find a clear question in the comments and the suggestions in Round 2, we present extended answers on the comments and the suggestions in Rounds 1 and 2:

 

Comments and Suggestions for Authors in Round 2:

The authors write: "The main goal of the work is to demonstrate and promote the advantages of the method, not to study complex examples. Of course, in future works more complex topologies will be considered."

However, the significance of the proposed method depends on its capability to deal with complex examples, where the reduction in the simulation time would be important. Without that, the manuscript is not convincing, and not interesting to the journal readers.

Therefore, I would ask the authors to present a more complex circuit, e.g., a three-phase converter.

Our answer in Round 2 was:

“Models on a three-phase converter in the authors’ software and Simulink are presented. A respective table with simulation durations is added. Тhe relationship between the simulation time and the model time is linear. There is а good scalability and reduction in the simulation time in case of the authors’ software.”

In Round 2 Figures 8 and 9 have been added, Table 2 have been presented too. In addition, the latest version of the article contains the following extended text, which concerns the model scalability:

“Why the chosen approach is appropriate in power electronics? Number of components in circuits is not large. Number of switches is not big too. Combinations of closed and opened switch states raise exponentially with raison of their number in case of non-interaction, but many of these combinations are forbidden by circuits' operation. For example, there are 2 combinations of switch states for the buck DC-DC converter from Fig. 2 (the respective number in case of non-interaction of its 2 switches is 4) and there are 6 such combinations of switch states for the three-phase converter from Fig. 9 (the respective number in case of non-interaction of its 8 switches is 256).“

 

Reviewer 2 Report

From the formal side, the paper is written by way that it is hard to read it.

Author Response

First of all, we would like to thank you for the thorough review of our paper (electronics-1547314) and the useful remarks to improve it.

 Reviewer 2

Comments and Suggestions for Authors
From the formal side, the paper is written by way that it is hard to read it.

To Reviewer 2:

            Thank you very much for the valuable remark.

 From the formal side, the paper is written by way that it is hard to read it.

The manuscript is edited again. Abstract is rewritten. Appropriate corrections have been made to Sections 1, 2 and 5 in order the article to be more readable.

 

Again thank you all for the exact review.