Design and Experiment of an Integrated Automatic Transplanting Mechanism for Picking and Planting Pepper Hole Tray Seedlings

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear authors,

apart from the negative effects of agriculture on the global environment, it is interesting and admirable how China is trying to increase the efficiency of agricultural production for the whole world. The paper presents solution of actual problem relating the agricultural machine. Besides the theoretical analysis of the problem, the practical application and results verification are presented. 

I have some comments, as follows:

1 First section of chapter Material and Methods (line 83, 84). Is it correct to say that “paper has developed”? In my opinion, the paper has not intelligence and so it cannot develop anything.   

2. Equation (1) relates the Figure 3. Is it possible to mark the angle alpha (α) from the equation (1) in Figure 3? Maybe, in initial position like angle ϕ.
3. Does letter D represent distance or point in equation (2) and in line 153? This equation expresses the sum of distances: D + l₄… ?
4. High-speed photography test is not mentioned in section Material and Methods.

5. Standards NY T3486-2019 and JB-T10291-2013 are not listed in section References. The citation in text is missing

Author Response

Thanks for your comments,I have revised the manuscripts as follows:

• As for the first one in the review comments, I did make an English expression mistake. I have changed "paper has developed" into" We have developed" in line 83 and 84.
• As for the second one in the review comments, I changed the Figure.3. You could see the marksof the initial angle alpha (α₁) from the equation(1)、the initial angle alpha (α₂) from the equation(2) and the gear diameter was denoted by d from Figure 3.
• In view of the unknown reference of the letter D in the article, I used letter dto represent the gear diameter and used letter D to represent the point in the cartesiancoordinates system. I also modified the equation(2)and the equation in line153.
• In view of the problem that the high-speed photographytest was not mentioned in section Material and Methods.I added the 2.5 section in section Material and Methods of the article, mainly including instrument parameters and the content of high-speed photography test .
• I have listed Standards NY T3486-2019 and JB-T10291-2013 in section References.

• Please see the attachment for the revised manuscripts.

Reviewer 2 Report

The article concerns the application of the mechanism for the automatic planting of pepper seedlings. The authors chose the mechanism and its design features to increase the efficiency of planting. While the very fact of improving the efficiency of the device is important for the end user, the article does not bring new knowledge from the point of view of solutions found in mechanics. No attempts were made to use new methods and algorithms for the synthesis of mechanical devices while achieving the goal. I emphasize once again, from a utilitarian point of view, the presented solutions are valuable. 

It would be good if the article at least included references to review articles related to the synthesis of mechanisms (not only focused on mechanisms used for planting or tunning mechanism parameters). 

Author Response

Thanks for your comments.I think the content of your comments gives me some inspiration.

I have replaced references 21, 22 and 23 with those related to the synthesis of mechanisms about the stem mechanical properties and morphological characteristics. Secondly, I have modified the lines 68 to 74 in the paper to show the reason for designing an integrated automatic transplanting mechanism.