Model Study on the Combination of Operating Parameters of Corn Kernel Harvesters

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The article describes the model study on the combination of operating parameters of Corn Kernel Harvesters. 
The experimental design is appropriately presented, there is good information regarding the number of experimental plots analyzed to assess working performance, statistical evaluation of the results is presented.
The manuscript topic is interesting and the work has been done with good scientific soundness and its English form need to be slightly improved.
In my opinion, it might be considered for publication after minor revisions that I suggest below.

[Figure 2]
The words in figure 2 (c) need to transfer Chinese to English. Most readers do not understand Chinese.

[Figure 4, 5]
The font size of words is too small. Please increase the font size for better understanding.

[Figures]
Figures including graphs or charts should be of publishable quality. Please improve the quality of the figures including the graph or charts.

[Discussion, Conculsions]
It describes in detail the results obtained; however, it lacks a discussion especially in relation to what is already available in the literature and on the market in terms of quantity-qualitative parameters.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

1. There are so many rudimentary deficiencies in the description of the treatise.

+ There are no Table 2 and Fig. 3

+ Are (a), (b) and (c) in Fig. 4 the same?

+ Inappropriate writing of captions in Fig.4 and Fig.9

+ “Table 4.2 Optimization of operating parameters.” is inappropriate.

+ Reference [6] and [7] do not have a page description.

 

2. There seems to be some errors and incomprehension as a technical description.

+ Does rad / min, which is written as a unit of rotation speed, mean “radian per minute” ?

+ What dose “crop quality” (e.g. Table 3) mean ?.

+ I could not understand the meaning of Figure 5. There is no explanation for this in the text

 

3. There is no appropriate description of the experimental method and interpretation of the obtained data, and the validity of the efforts cannot be evaluated.

+ Commercially available software (MATLAB, DSP V9.0.1, etc.) shows product information, e.g., the manufacturer. Besides, the important matter is not what software was used, but what theory was used for the analysis. There is a description about optimization, but no explanation appears in the body.

+ Impurity rate, crushing rate, and corn kernel loss rate, etc., are not well understood whether they are estimated values ​​or measured values. If it is an actually measured value, there is no description about the measurement method. If it is an estimated value, it is inappropriate to conclude that an appropriate analysis could be performed without discussing how much the estimated value matches the real value.

+ There is no information on the measurement supplement and method, sampling interval, measurement time, fluctuation, etc. for measurement related to combine (revolution rate of threshing cylinder, engine, re-detachment speed, upper kernel speed, speed indicator, detection of cylinder speed etc.)

+ Information deficiency about the target crop. The cropping information, field plots, variety of corn, and sample size and standard deviation for growth and yield surveys, should be also provided.

310 cm (short?) as a plant height seems to be very high. Is it correct?

 

4. The past achievements have not been properly reviewed, and the uniqueness and explain of this study are not claimed property.

+ In explaining the background of this research, topics such as machine vision, neural networks, and robots combines are not related to this research.

+ A paper on the efficiency and high accuracy of combine operation are appropriate citation as a general background explanation, but technically background of this research are not reviewed.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

Dear Authors, I am sending a few minor comments to the manuscript of the article,


Kind regards,

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

1. There are still too many inappropriate descriptions

+ Are these definition OK?

Zz — Crushing rate,  in line 186,   SL — Impurity rate, in line 188

+ The load would be changed during operation. How important is the rated load [in line 190]. monitored during operation.

+ funtions --> function in the revised figure 6 and 7

+ Plots could not be distinguished in figure 6 and 7.

+ Volume and mass are different physical quantity. The unit of volume is NEVER kg. Some “volume” should be revised to “mass”. I’m not sure that some “volume” would be correct. How do you think which of the volume or mass affected the cylinder speed or others?

 

2. The method of field test is still insufficiently explained.

+ Crushing rate and impurity rate were accounted in equations. But the method of sampling is not described.

+ I could not find out how the experiment conducted. I guess the engine speed, cylinder speed are measured while combine travels under usual harvesting. Then feeding rete was calculated by previous sampling near the combine’s harvesting position. In that case, the position of previous sampling and combine harvesting are completely different because of reduction inside combine. That means the feeding rate cannot be compare with other information.

+ Magneto-electric speed sensor usually reacts the unevenness of gears. According to Figure 2, some does not seem to work properly.

Author Response

Responses to questions are in the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

Dear Authors,

Thank you for responding to my comments. Unfortunately, the typescript correction is not sufficient. Still, comments number 3, 4, 9, 13, 14, 15 and 16 have not been fully included in the article.
The article needs to be corrected.

Kind regards

Author Response

Responses to questions are in the attachment。

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 3

Reviewer 2 Report

The matters pointed out in the past have not been improved, and the definition of physical quantities and measurement methods are unscientific. Unfortunately, I decided that there was a problem in understanding the physical phenomenon, not a mistake in the description.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

Dear Authors,

Please make a minor correction - comments in the files.

Kind regards

 

Comments for author File: Comments.7z

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx