Contributions to Image Transmission in Icing Conditions on Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

It would be more correct to use the word decreases instead of lessens as used in Figure 1. Also, GPS is not shown in Figure 3. I thank the authors for their contributions to the literature.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Comments on the Quality of English Language

There are some minor typos in the text. These are recommended to be corrected.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The article titled “Contributions to Image Transmission in Icing Conditions on Unmanned Aerial Vehicles”, relates to my area of interest that’s why I suggest or recommend some points which may help to improve the readability as well as the overall structure of this manuscript. The following are my suggestions, recommendations, and questions for this article which may help to improve the quality of this manuscript are as follows.

 

1.      Kindly modify your title to understand better for readers (if possible).

2.      Abstract

·        Must use the contrast word i.e., On one hand, and On the other hand.

·        Which new technique you have used for this study? Please highlight.

·        Line 7 and 8 seems incomplete i.e. “For this goal, three contributions have been developed for the unmanned aircraft Milano.”

·        What are the three contributions? It doesn’t reflect in the abstract.

·        By using the comparison of the indicators between manned and unmanned aircraft, how much percent of the technique is efficient?

3.      Introduction

·        Multiple keywords exist i.e. UAV, UAS, and Unmanned Aircrafts, Please justify your contributions.

·        Add one or two paragraphs at the start of the introduction about related work.

·        What is the main motivation of this research to elaborate it separately in the introduction section?

·        Table 1 has some missing headings (don’t know about column details)

·        Technical specifications have missing citations in Table 1.

·        Do objective section details contradict contributions? Justify

·        It's better to break the introduction section into multiple sections (Seems everything is explained in the introduction)

4.      Contributions

·        You need to change the title of this section (doesn’t match).

·        May have some appropriate methodology.

·        Figure citations are missing.

 

5.      Results

·        Contribution doesn’t reflect properly in this section.

·        The quality of figures is not as per the standard (Vision and size issue).

·        The result section needs major revision.

6.      Discussion

·        Revise the discussion and include some outcomes of the work.

 

7.      Future Research Lines

·        Minor revision is required in this section.

 

 

8.      General Comments

·        In the introduction, very less citations are there Need to revise it properly.

·        Kindly add articles to your work (2020-2023)

·        Check all the references carefully.

·        Check all figures carefully.

 

Comments on the Quality of English Language

Overall English is better in this article. just need to recheck some minor spell-checking and grammatical errors.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Line 20: "Unmanned aerial systems" or "Unmanned aerial vehicle" is an outdated term. It is suggested to use the term "Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS)" and "Unmanned Aircraft (UA)" instead.

Line 20:  A typical UAS also encompasses a command- and control link. It is suggested to add this aspect.

Line 24: In accordance to ATP-3.3.8.1 Ed. B, V 1, NATO differentiates UAS by "class" and not "type". It is recommended to exchange "type" by "class".

Line 26: Source 2 and 3 have been superseded by NATO STANDARD ATP-3.3.8.1, Ed. B, Version 1. The document is available at the official site of NATO's Standardisation Organisation nso.nato.int. It is suggested to 1) to exchange the sources by the cited one here, 2) to use the official source instead of the provided source "everyspec.com".

Line 73 and 74: The statement regarding the potential environmental impact due to higher fuel consumption is from my point of view negligible, because as soon as icing occurs, every pilot will try to escape as soon as possible. Therefore, the expected flight time under icing conditions and hence, higher fuel consumption, should be minimal.

Line 81: Source 24 ist not an engineering standard, it is a certification standard.

Line 100: It is recommended to note in the text, that satellite communication between GCS and UA needs to take into account latency times more than radio-line-of-sight communication.

Equation (8) is an exact repetition of equation (7)

The text line before equation (8) as well as lines 262 and 263 are a repetition of the line before equation (7) and lines 260 and 261.

Line 278: "To do the calculations it is assumed that this particular point is located 0.2 m from the camera." Could you please add a sentence why you deduced that distance as basis for your calculations?

Lines below equation (14): "A correct value will not be obtained as a result of a phenomenon called optical dispersion. So the IFOV in mm is multiplied by three as follows:" It is recommended to add a source regarding "optical dispersion" and with regard to the factor three.

Lines below equation (20): "A correct value will not be obtained as a result of a phenomenon called optical dispersion. So the IFOV in mm is multiplied by three as follows:" This is a repetition of the lines below equation (14). Recommended to shorten this sentence, e.g. "Again a correct value will not be obtained, so again the IFOV is multiplied by three."

General Note:

The contributions regarding ice detection are presented clearly and understood, in particular from a flight test point of view. However, it should be noted, that the detection of ice in order to allow operations of the UA within areas where icing might occur, is critical seen from an airworthiness perspective. Assuming that the contributions presented in the paper should be applied in a UA which is subject to airworthiness certification, the sensors as well as the data link would be part of an assessment regarding safety and potential failure modes, leading to the necessary software and hardware development levels. Of course, this would be dependent upon the UAS design (e.g. is the visual detection the only mean to detect ice, are there backups etc.). It is suggested to provide some short lines about this matter of fact.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 4 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Comments are listed below:

(1) Most of the references are to work done more than five years ago, and the authors are advised to further investigate the current state of research in the field in recent years.

(2) Please also mention the technical difficulty of this work compared with that in the existing works.

(3) Some of the images in the text are blurry, please ask the author to upload higher resolution images to make it easier for readers to proceed, for example, Figure 4 in the text.

(4)  In the conclusion section, it is suggested to summarize the highlights of the investigation results that convey the key findings to the readers.

(5) There are also grammatical and word spelling errors in some parts of the text.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

There are also grammatical and word spelling errors in some parts of the text.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

I am satisfied with your corrections. The authors have made significant changes to the article.  

Reviewer 4 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

I have no further comments!