Autonomous UAS-Based Agriculture Applications: General Overview and Relevant European Case Studies
, Vasileios Skliros 3,†, Carl Bergenhem 4,†, Mikko Himanka 5,†, Torbjørn Houge 6,†, João P. Matos-Carvalho 7,8,†, Henrik Lundkvist 1,†, Baran Cürüklü 9,†, Rasmus Hamrén 10,†, Afshin E. Ameri 9,†, Carl Ahlberg 9,†and Gorm Johansen 1,†Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
This paper presents in an interesting way the milestones of the AsFarmCloud Research Project.
Understanding as an objective the autonomy of UAS in agricultural applications, as the title indicates, the sections of the article exposing these works I think can be sufficiently developed, but those referring to agronomy are not sufficiently explained as novelty.
Sections 3.3.3, 3.3.4, 3.3.6. and 3.3.7. do show greater visibility in the achievements made, although the need to concentrate the advances in a single article is perhaps too demanding. I believe that this detracts from the article, although it makes visible the intention of integrating the different works carried out in the project.
However, sections 3.3.1, 3.3.2 or 3.3.5. are insufficient in explanation, probably not in the Project, but in this article. The authors should have shown specific cases and more precise analysis of their achievements due to their importance. It is worth noting the possibilities in 3.3.2 for the suggestion in Figure 3 where the reader is left to inventiveness.
Authors are urged to develop these parts to give them the sufficient content of contributions that is required in this type of publications.
As a point of note:
- There are no references to ISO11783 as a standard for the application of electronics that for many years, has been leading advances in machine automation and which has a chapter 10 on FMIS in the field of tractors and agronomic applications, closely linked to precision agriculture. This acronym and the proposed FMS have parallels to be explained by their similarity.
- In table 1, the ability of drones to spread seeds or other small caliber elements is missing and has to be included also in this table.
Author Response
Thank you for reviewing our paper and providing useful comments. I have a file with all the reviewer comments as well as our responses to these comments.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Some comments
The paper mainly about the progress and development of UAS in EU area, it’s not a worldwide review, I think in the title the EU area should be added. Their are many new research and applications of UAS for agriculture in China.
Section 3.3.6, there are industrial products for such drone charging stations in Asian countries, I think the ‘Novel concepts’ is not proper.
For 3.3 UAS applications, some more details should be added for each application. And some applications were missing compared with Table 2 which were quite important applications.
Table 2, the reference was only some review paper references, the original or application paper should be cited.
Some new directions for UAS should be added.
Author Response
Thank you for reviewing our paper and providing useful comments. I have attached a file with all the reviewer comments as well as our responses to these comments.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
Dear authors,
Please find my remarks in the document attached.
Kind regards,
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
Author Response
Thank you for reviewing our paper and providing useful comments. I have attached a file with all the reviewer comments as well as our responses to these comments.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 4 Report
A well-written paper on the topic of drone operational management.
The objectives of the paper are not clearly stated. I suggest adding a sentence or two with the specific goals of the paper at the end of the introduction.
Line 104: Clarify what a 'node' is.
Author Response
Thank you for reviewing our paper and providing useful comments. I have attached a file with all the reviewer comments as well as our responses to these comments.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
Authors have included most of the required comments. I agree with their improves and hope this can be clearer to readers and researches that can study very interesting proposals in this paper. Thanks for your contribution
Author Response
Thank you so much for your time.
