General comments:

    The authors introduced an intelligent cruise detection system for aerosols. This system is composed of control module, aerosol detection module, environment sensing and positioning module, and wire control chassis module. Experiments were also conducted for three different application scenarios of continuous vertical detection, scanning detection and unmanned intelligent cruise detection. The experimental results show that the system can effectively and continuously acquire the vertical and spatial distribution of aerosol pollutants. It can achieve three-dimensional scanning and positioning tracking of atmospheric aerosols. It has the ability of unmanned cruise detection and real-time warning of regional pollution prevention and control. I think this is an interesting study. Regarding this manuscript, I think there are some aspects that can be minor modified.

Specific comments:

1. Actual vehicle demonstrations are limited throughout the text, with real-world vehicle images only provided in the final section on unmanned cruise functionality. Could you provide additional images or videos of testing to further validate the experimental results?
2. In the introduction, the need for uninterrupted cruise detection during regional pollution prevention and control actions, which can lead to a significant loss of operator energy. This has resulted in a significant increase in labor costs for existing manned cruise detection systems. Can you give an example or cite a specific case for illustration?
3. In the second part on system and methods, the path planning and obstacle avoidance strategies for the unmanned vehicle all adopt relatively conventional approaches. I wonder if the author has conducted other more sophisticated path planning method investigations in subsequent research.
4. The relationship between the depolarization ratio stratification phenomenon and dust input has not been validated by integrating satellite meteorological data. Can different data be used to verify the weather conditions of the day?
5. In the introduction, it is mentioned that scanning detection is divided into horizontal scanning and cone-scanning Detection. However, only cone-scanning detection is mentioned in the manuscript. Can horizontal scanning experiments be added to illustrate the detection capability of the system?
6. The unmanned intelligent cruise detection experiments have only been conducted in small-scale navigation within the campus. I wonder if the author has any plans for subsequent experiments in different environments and road conditions.
7. Line110: 'range-corrected signal' should be 'Range-corrected signal'?
8. Line111: modify ‘X’ to ‘X(z)’
9. Line 173, label (a) in the legend of Fig. 3 is not explained.
10. The meanings of the parameters in the table on line 175 are not explained. Please indicate them.
11. line 196: the meanings of PM2.5/PM10 is not explained.

This paper presents an approach of measuring aerosols by means of a Mie-scattering lidar atop of an unmanned vehicle through a centralized control module. The authors briefly present the system architecture and control module before studying two case-examples of lidar measurements of aerosol properties in Hefei. Finally, they show the experimental results of an unmanned measurement around their laboratory buildings. The technology seems promising and can be of use in real-world applications. However, the manuscript lacks some fundamental discussion, motivation, experimental results validation and discussion, and the English requires extensive editing. Therefore, I suggest this paper to be re-considered and re-submitted again. Below I provide some comments to be considered by the authors.

General comments

In the introduction review of the different types of lidars, the discussion should be more open and not only discuss few particular studies. For instance, for airborne lidar, it seems as it only serves for marine aerosol measurement and the measurement of PM.

The introduction of mobile ground-based lidar lacks motivation with respect to the state of the art. Please, highlight which gap in the state of the art does it fill. Are the other existing moving ground-based lidars limited? In which manner?

System principles and methods: Please, provide which modules have been used: which hardware model for the controller, which lidar (if commercial), which router, etc.? Which type of OS is used? How are the communications between modules carried out? Are there not any sensors measuring velocity, wheel radial speed, etc.? Further details are required.

Further details on the lidar are required. Is it a commercial lidar? Under which modes can it operate (vertical, conical)? Which temporal and spatial resolutions does it have? How has it been calibrated?

No explanation of Mie-scattering lidar measurement is provided. Please provide a paragraph explaining the measurement principle of lidars through Mie scattering.

Sect. 2.4.: This section is incomplete. The control of the unmanned vehicle should be described more in detail, thoroughly describing the methods used, and concretizing the resultant equations for the target system. The method should be reproducible. Further explanation of variables such as state and control variables, Lagrange interpolation polynomials, or Legendre-Gauss collocation point are required.

Sect. 3.1.: Is it needed to prove that the lidar is able to capture the aerosols? If it is a commercial lidar, this could be addressed as a case example for the study scenario and not a proof of its capacity. Same for Sect. 3.2.

Sect. 3.3.: This section is incomplete. No discussion of the results is provided. No plot of the results is neither provided. How can you assure that the system is able to provide accurate measurements of the aerosol profiles? Is there any calibration/validation? Which are the velocities that the vehicle can achieve? Which problems did it encounter? How do the results connect with the state of the art?

Why is it necessary to have in a single controller for both the lidar and the vehicle? Would not be easier to have separate controllers for each type of the system? Please comment on that.

Minor comments

Lines 35/38: I suggest highlighting the adverse effects on health besides viruses and germs. For instance, reduced life-expectancy, higher cancer rates, etc.

Lines 47-49: Regarding space lidar, once launched, the maintenance costs are virtually eliminated. Please, provide a reference for that.

Line 54: “it’s” should be “it”.

Line 70: “to addess the above issues. This paper […]” please remove the dot.

Equation (1): write it with “e” instead of “exp”, remove “*” and/or change it to “·”. Please enunciate the value of the lidar constant C used.

Lines 90-95: These sentences are written like a list. Please, rephrase them to provide better flow and readability for the text.

Line 110-111: “Previous studies […]”. Please provide references for the studies.

Equation (3): provide the value used for constant k.

Line 120-123: Change dots to commas. Indicate what are t_0 and t_f.

Equation (6): De-capitalize “OR” and separate them. It looks like “ORM” is written. What is theta?

Lines 139-140: Please rephrase. This sentence does not make sense.

Line 143: Please provide a reference for the Bolza problem.

Lines 145-146: satisfy what? Sentence incomplete.

Line 163-167: This should be moved to Sect. 3.

Lines 183-195: Please provide references.

Fig. (6): Please provide a label for the colorbar.