Dear Dr. Valavanis, Many thanks for the comments from yourself and the two anonymous reviewers on my submitted paper "Designing Teams of Autonomous Robots for Distributed Construction, Repair, and Maintenance: A Computational Complexity Perspective". As neither Reviewer 2 nor yourself had specific suggestions for changes, I have extensively revised my original submitted paper in accordance with the comments of Reviewer 1. Most significantly, I have added numerous pieces of text (described in the response to Comment 1 by Reviewer 1) to (1) highlight that the research in my paper is theoretical and not experimental and (2) sketch how theoretical work such as that described in my paper can be combined with physical robot experiments to be of use to real-world robotics. I have not, as strongly suggested by Reviewer 1, added any experiments as part of my revision. I agree with Reviewer 1 that my theoretically-derived results must eventually be validated and that this must involve experiments (both with simulations and physical robots). However, given the extensive nature of such experiments and the further necessity of doing these experiments as part of an iterative process that alternates analysis, experiments, and model revision (as sketched in Section 6.2 of the revised paper), I believe that the research reported in my revised paper stands by itself for now as a useful first step in such a process. All revised text is highlighted in boldface. Major changes are: * A revised abstract; * A revised introduction, literature review, and paper organization (Section 1); * A significantly revised discussion (Section 6, and in particular Section 6.2); * A revised conclusion (Section 7); * A significantly augmented bibliography (15 new references added); and * A revised appendix. Responses to specific reviewer comments are given below. Given the extensive nature of my revisions, I have not quoted revised text in these responses. Rather, where necessary, pieces of text in the revised paper that are particularly relevant to any Comment X made by Reviewer 1 have been flagged in the revised paper with the tag "[R1(CX)]". I hope that I have in my revised paper adequately addressed all issues raised by Reviewer 1, and look forward to your thoughts on this revision. Sincerely, Todd Wareham ------------------------------------------------------------ Comments from Reviewer #1: 1. The content of the paper is too theoretical and many concepts are only in abstract stage. These postulations need to be experimented thoroughly and then only authors can comment on the outcome. RESPONSE: I thank the reviewer for this comment. It may not have been clear in the original submitted version of my paper that the content of this paper is theoretical rather than experimental (as is typical with computational complexity analyses, especially with analyses such as mine that are the first done for a particular problem of interest). As such, neither simulation nor physical robot experiments are for now part of my research; however, they most certainly could (and indeed should) be in future. To address the first issue, I have added a number of pieces of text flagged with tag "[R1(C1)]" throughout the paper pointing out that the results in this paper are theoretical (and derived relative to simplified robot systems) and not experimental (see pages 1, 4-6, 9, 17, and 19-22). To address the second issue, I have extensively revised Section 6 to add a new two-page discussion on how various types of ``reality gaps'' between theoretically- analyzed and real-world robot systems could be bridged by using both more careful theoretical analyses and physical robot experiments; all such text is also flagged with tag "[R1(C1)]" (see pages 1, 4, and 17-21). I have not, as strongly suggested, added any experiments in doing this revision. I agree with the reviewer that my theoretically-derived results must eventually be validated and that this must involve experiments (both with simulations and physical robots). However, given the extensive nature of such experiments and the further necessity of doing these experiments as part of an iterative process that alternates analysis, experiments, and model revision (as sketched in Section 6.2 of the revised paper), I believe that the research reported in my revised paper stands by itself for now as a useful first step in such a process. 2. Authors should also highlight the novelty of the postulations and relevance to the domain of autonomous robots. RESPONSE: I thank the reviewer for this comment. These issues were indeed not clear in the original submitted version of paper. In clarifying the theoretical rather than experimental nature of my paper as well as now discussing in detail how theoretical analyses of robot systems and physical robot experiments can be used together to be of use to real-world robotics as described above in the response to Comment 1, I believe that I now highlight both the novelty of my (theoretical) contributions and the relevance of these contributions to (real-world) autonomous robotics. Hence, all pieces of text flagged with tag "[R1(C1)]" in the text listed above in the response to Comment 1 also comprise my response to this comment. 3. Literature survey is fine; however, authors can include another 5-6 references. RESPONSE: I thank the reviewer for this comment. Five references have been added to the literature review in Section 1.1 (References 4, 5, 29, 48, and 50). An additional ten references (References 1, 6, 10, 24, 25, 27, 28, 30, 32, and 40) have also been added as part of the extensively revised discussion in Section 6 described above in the responses to Comments 1 and 2. 4, The scientific & technical content of "Appendix" should be explained in detail and preferably these items should be incorporated in the main text. RESPONSE: I thank the reviewer for this comment. As is discussed in the responses to Comments 1 and 2 above, I have in the revised paper explained in more detail the scientific content of the results proved in the Appendix. Given that I want to focus on the meaning of my results in the main text and in my opinion including the proofs of these results in the main text does not add to discussions of this meaning (and may indeed make such discussions harder to follow), I have left all proofs in the Appendix. This is explained in the newly-added paragraph on page 5 flagged with tag "[R1(C4)]". As regards the technical content of the Appendix, in order to make the proofs more accessible to readers who are less familiar with computational complexity analysis, I have explained in more detail in the Appendix both what reductions are and how they are used to show intractability. This is done in a new paragraph on pages 24-25 and two new paragraphs on page 27. all of which are flagged with the tag "[R1(C4)]. It also seemed reasonable in the interests of accessibility to give a more detailed explanation of polynomial-time tractability; this has been done in new text and its associated footnote on page 12 flagged with the tag "[R1(C4)]".