-->PONE-D-24-27043-->-->The Spatiotemporal Evolution of Flight-Coupled Wind Field for a Four-Rotor Plant Protection Unmanned Aerial Vehicle-->-->PLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Yang,

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process.

The authors are suggested to provide the procedure for numerical modeling  in detail as suggested by the reviewers.

Please submit your revised manuscript by Sep 12 2024 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org . When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file.

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We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Muhammad Shakaib, PhD

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

-->Comments to the Author

1. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented. -->

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: No

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-->2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? -->

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: N/A

**********

-->3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.-->

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: No

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-->4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.-->

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: No

**********

-->5. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)-->

Reviewer #1: 1. Having read the article, I am a little confused on the difference in the terms Working Conditions, Conditions and Calculation Conditions 1 and 2? Do they refer to the same thing?

2.The Equation 1 and 2, I suggest that they come one after the other and not separated by Fig. 2 as the definitions of the symbols are all given in the same paragraph after Equation 2. Fig. 2 should be after the last paragraph of the Introduction section.

3. For Table 1, maybe the columns can be separated into 3 representing x, y and z.

4. For Fig. 5, does the location of the computational domain @ Domain 1 - Domain 4 correspond to the Interface 1-4?

5. is testing point, observation and feature point the same?

6. maybe can explain more on what is the flow field evolution law mentioned.

7. Fig. 6 - the bottom part of the Centrifugal wording seems to be missing.

8. Maybe can use another better wording for the phrase 'dug out' in line 190.

9. For equation 4 , maybe can define each of the symbol used.

10. There are a few suggestions to improve some of the wordings and phrases and also the format of the paper. I have submitted my review of the paper for the author's reference.

Reviewer #2: Overall, the description of the numerical method is insufficient, and there is no reproducibility.

What is the Zb direction? Since there is no explanation, the meaning is unclear within the abstract.

The symbol list should be added.

What grid generation software is used? If the code is in-house, specific schemes should be explained, or published papers should be cited.

What software is being used for the NS solver as well? In the case of in-house code, specific calculation methods

(Space discretization methods (inviscid, viscous), time integration methods, pressure coupling, matrix solvers, etc.) should be explained or published papers should be cited.

The reviewer speculates that some commercial software(StarCCM+ or ANSYS) is used.

I don't know which are the calculation results and which are the experimental results. Are they really compared?

The boundary condition name, such as pressure outlet, does not tell what the boundary condition is(the software's proprietary words).

It is necessary to explain what kind of boundary conditions are imposed on the pressure and velocity by using specific mathematical expressions.

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-->6. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean? ). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files.

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Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy .-->

Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

**********

[NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.]

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Attachments

Attachment

Submitted filename: PONE-D-24-27043_reviewer.pdf

-->PONE-D-24-27043R1-->-->The Spatiotemporal Evolution of Flight-Coupled Wind Field for a Four-Rotor Plant Protection Unmanned Aerial Vehicle-->-->PLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Yang,

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process.

 -->-->The authors are suggested to make minor changes in the paper as recommended by the reviewers

Please submit your revised manuscript by Feb 19 2025 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org . When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file.

Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript:-->

• A rebuttal letter that responds to each point raised by the academic editor and reviewer(s). You should upload this letter as a separate file labeled 'Response to Reviewers'.
• A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'.
• An unmarked version of your revised paper without tracked changes. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Manuscript'.

-->If you would like to make changes to your financial disclosure, please include your updated statement in your cover letter. Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter.

If applicable, we recommend that you deposit your laboratory protocols in protocols.io to enhance the reproducibility of your results. Protocols.io assigns your protocol its own identifier (DOI) so that it can be cited independently in the future. For instructions see: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-laboratory-protocols . Additionally, PLOS ONE offers an option for publishing peer-reviewed Lab Protocol articles, which describe protocols hosted on protocols.io. Read more information on sharing protocols at https://plos.org/protocols?utm_medium=editorial-email&utm_source=authorletters&utm_campaign=protocols .

We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Muhammad Shakaib, PhD

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Journal Requirements:

Please review your reference list to ensure that it is complete and correct. If you have cited papers that have been retracted, please include the rationale for doing so in the manuscript text, or remove these references and replace them with relevant current references. Any changes to the reference list should be mentioned in the rebuttal letter that accompanies your revised manuscript. If you need to cite a retracted article, indicate the article’s retracted status in the References list and also include a citation and full reference for the retraction notice.

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Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

-->Comments to the Author

1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation.-->

Reviewer #1: All comments have been addressed

Reviewer #2: All comments have been addressed

**********

-->2. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented. -->

Reviewer #1: Partly

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

-->3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? -->

Reviewer #1: N/A

Reviewer #2: N/A

**********

-->4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.-->

Reviewer #1: (No Response)

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

-->5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.-->

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: No

**********

-->6. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)-->

Reviewer #1: The text needs to be checked for grammatical errors to improve on readers understanding of the information inside the paper. There are still some sentences that require improvement.

Please check again the governing equations and their corresponding explanations. For example. F in the navier-stokes equation may not actual represent inviscid fluxes.

Please check again that all the abbreviations and symbols in the text are defined. For example, y+.

If possible, please use the standard terms usually used in explaining computational fluid dynamics simulation. For example, control body can be replaced by control volume.

Please make sure that the terms used in the text are always consistent. For example, turbulent kinetic energy k and turbulence k equation; epsilon equation and dissipation equation.

It may be useful to make some indications/labels on the results/ figures itself corresponding to the explanation provided in the text. For example, in Figure 10, which is the UV body, airflow, horseshoe tail, etc.....which would really assist the readers in understanding the findings even more.

For Figure 6, please make the figure larger so that the readers may see the mesh/grid more clearly.

Reviewer #2: Thank you for your response to my comment.

There are numbers in the paper with a very large number of significant digits, but it is hard to have such precision in either the experimental or calculated values. All numbers need to be revised to show each with reliable precision.

In Figure 8, the caption states that the calculation results are plotted, but for the other figures, it is not clear whether they draw measurement results or calculation results.

Figure 9 says that it compares experimental and calculated values, but it is not clear which lines are experimental values and which are calculated values.

In several sentences, it is difficult to understand the meaning. For example,

"Only when the coupled wind field is analyzed can the interaction mechanism among wind field, pesticide droplet, and crop canopy be effectively studied, then the flight spray scheme can be reasonably formulated."

in the abstract.

**********

-->7. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean? ). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files.

If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public.

Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy .-->

Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

**********

[NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.]

While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/ . PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email PLOS at figures@plos.org . Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step.-->

The Spatiotemporal Evolution of Flight-Coupled Wind Field for a Four-Rotor Plant Protection Unmanned Aerial Vehicle

PONE-D-24-27043R2

Dear Dr. Yang,

We’re pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it meets all outstanding technical requirements.

Within one week, you’ll receive an e-mail detailing the required amendments. When these have been addressed, you’ll receive a formal acceptance letter and your manuscript will be scheduled for publication.

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If your institution or institutions have a press office, please notify them about your upcoming paper to help maximize its impact. If they’ll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team as soon as possible -- no later than 48 hours after receiving the formal acceptance. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information, please contact onepress@plos.org.

Kind regards,

Muhammad Shakaib, PhD

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

Reviewers' comments: