A Novel Method for Inverse Kinematics Solutions of Space Modular Self-Reconfigurable Satellites with Self-Collision Avoidance

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

In this paper, the authors have proposed a segmented hybrid CMA-ES and PSO algorithm for optimizing the inverse kinematics of SMSRS. The proposed algorithm and the optimization technique have been compared with other algorithms. The paper is interesting, however listed below are some comments that could be considered:

• In page #3, lines 90 and 91 misses references for CMA-ES, DE, and DS. Please add the corresponding references.
• In page #3, line 103, please rephrase the sentence "The remaining paper is organized as follows."
• In page #7, line 235, the comma after "While" should be removed.
• In page #8, line 321, please move the subsection title to the next page.
• Is there any critical time thresholds for the proposed technique that should not be exceeded to achieve the proper satellite movement? The optimization methods should run in real-time and this should affect the proper operation. I think authors should discuss this point in the feasibility section of the paper.

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

I am really grateful to you for your careful review of my paper and for giving me many valuable comments and the opportunity to continue revising. I will revise my paper according to your comments one by one, and if I have not explained them clearly to you, please allow me to continue improving them. Thanks again.

My response please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Dear authors;

I read the manuscript carefully, It is an interesting topic. Because the structure of SMSRS is hyper-redundant, therefore authors should explain more:

1. Because each module has a standard interface and regular shape. In the Introduction section, three modules were connected by 3 rotating joint, but in In section 5 of “Experiments setting”, it showed that SMSRS has 9 modules, how many modules does SMSRS have?
2. In line 147, you gave: q=[q₁ q₂ q₃ … q_i]^T. In line 152, the equation is little different like as: q=[q₁ q₂ q₃ … q_Ni]^T
3. If SMSRS is with more than three modules, please give satisfied conditions for two modules not colliding.
4. Please, give reasons for objective function of inverse kinematics.
5. Why do the authors predict homogeneous matrices, which contain relative position and attitude for equation (19).
6. Why the degree of freedom of a side is 12, but one’s b side is 13.
7. It is difficult to prove SHCP algorithm being effective to solve the inverse kinematics for SMSRS. 

Thanks.

Sincerely.

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

I am really grateful to you for your careful review of my paper and for giving me many valuable comments and the opportunity to continue revising. I will revise my paper according to your comments one by one, and if I have not explained them clearly to you, please allow me to continue improving them. Thanks again.

My response please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx