From the journal Digital Discovery Peer review history

13-Jun-2023

Dear Dr Cooper:

Manuscript ID: DD-ART-04-2023-000075
TITLE: Autonomous Biomimetic Solid Dispensing Using a Dual-Arm Robotic Manipulator

Thank you for your submission to Digital Discovery, published by the Royal Society of Chemistry. I sent your manuscript to reviewers and I have now received their reports which are copied below.

After careful evaluation of your manuscript and the reviewers’ reports, I will be pleased to accept your manuscript for publication after revisions.

Please revise your manuscript to fully address the reviewers’ comments. When you submit your revised manuscript please include a point by point response to the reviewers’ comments and highlight the changes you have made. Full details of the files you need to submit are listed at the end of this email.

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I look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Yours sincerely,
Professor Jason Hein
Associate Editor, Digital Discovery

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Reviewer 1

This research paper presents a robotic 'automation' tool for solid dispensing. However, I believe that the data checklist from digital discovery doesn't quite apply here. The data repository contains the code but has no description of what any piece of code/folder means and what it should be used for. I suggest authors add as much information as possible to this repository so that it is easier for users (or data reviewers) to connect them back to different components mentioned in the paper.

Reviewer 2

This is a really nice piece of work that addresses a current problem in SDL, namely the addition of solids. I think the fuzzy logic control is neat and the basic idea is nice and worth publishing. I would however suggest the figures, particularly the data presentation figures are improved so the comparison between the techniques is easy to see. I'd also like some comment on how other parts of the SDL process - such as moving the material from the weighing station to the reactor might be addressed at least conceptually.

Referee: 1
Comments to the Author
This research paper presents a robotic 'automation' tool for solid dispensing. However, I believe that the data checklist from digital discovery doesn't quite apply here. The data repository contains the code but has no description of what any piece of code/folder means and what it should be used for. I suggest authors add as much information as possible to this repository so that it is easier for users (or data reviewers) to connect them back to different components mentioned in the paper.

Response:
We thank the reviewers for bringing that to our attention. We reorganized the repo based on your constructive comments. To elaborate, we expanded the main readme file with helpful figures and more thorough description of the repo structure. Moreover, we have added readme files to each folder to better describe its content. Please see https://github.com/fourteenjiang/Solid-dispensing.git . We also added better representing videos, please see https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.8082246.


Referee: 2
Comments to the Author
This is a really nice piece of work that addresses a current problem in SDL, namely the addition of solids. I think the fuzzy logic control is neat and the basic idea is nice and worth publishing. 1) I would however suggest the figures, particularly the data presentation figures are improved so the comparison between the techniques is easy to see. 2) I'd also like some comment on how other parts of the SDL process - such as moving the material from the weighing station to the reactor might be addressed at least conceptually.

Response:
We thank the reviewer for these positive remarks and comments. Our response to these comments as follows:
1) We changed figure 6, which presents our experimental results, so it is more concise and easier to follow.
2) We add on the paragraph on how the proposed solids dispensing station cooperates with other stations:
Future work will include technical improvements to the platform as well as its use in research applications. We envisage improved dispensing algorithms that incorporate self-learning for specific solids; it might also be feasible to incorporate visual feedback to augment the feedback from the analytical balance. This solid dispensing workstation is modular and could be extended by connecting it to other stations. For example, a mobile robot2 could be used to deliver additional empty vials to the station and to transport filled vials to other stations, such as a chemical synthesis station. We will also exploit the versatility of the dual-arm robot to incorporate other tasks into workflows beside solid dispensing. As an example, the dual-arm robot might double as a capping/decapping station for sample vials. Thinking more broadly, these results suggest that other biomimetic approaches could be developed where robots use relatively simply tools to reproduce, more or less, the operations carried out by human researchers, rather than building more bespoke automated laboratory devices.

28-Jun-2023

Dear Dr Cooper:

Manuscript ID: DD-ART-04-2023-000075.R1
TITLE: Autonomous Biomimetic Solid Dispensing Using a Dual-Arm Robotic Manipulator

Thank you for submitting your revised manuscript to Digital Discovery. I am pleased to accept your manuscript for publication in its current form.

You will shortly receive a separate email from us requesting you to submit a licence to publish for your article, so that we can proceed with the preparation and publication of your manuscript.

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By publishing your article in Digital Discovery, you are supporting the Royal Society of Chemistry to help the chemical science community make the world a better place.

With best wishes,

Professor Jason Hein
Associate Editor, Digital Discovery


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