E-Textile Metamaterials: Stop Band Pass Filter
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
It’s an interesting work.
But first of all, I have few questions and I think it would be good to be inserted the answers in the text :
- In the Fig. 5b, solid RF connectors used to perform the measurements are observed. Do you have designed also wearable RF connectors? Which are the actual conditions to use the designed filter?
- Given the flexible substrate on which the filter is built, how it will change its parameters in the case of bending? (Or what is the minimum curvature radius for which the stop band is maintained within acceptable limits?);
- Effectiveness of any filter depends on the quality of the shield in which it is incorporated, especially at high frequency. Your measurements have been done in the absence of a shield? How would it be possible to build a shield for your filter, keeping all other features?
Observation:
In keywords, “wearable” and “electromagnetic” are too general. I suggest to add a distinct term, as example “wearable tech device” and “electromagnetic filter”
Some spellings issues that must be avoided:
- it’s necessary to use long dash for “minus” sign, instead hyphen (rows no. 10, 103, 125, 126);
- use non-hyphen special character to keep together a quantity of its measuring unit at the end of row (rows no. 103, 104);
- replace “SIGNER” with “SINGER” (row 70);
- it’s advisable to finish the sentence on row 72 with the value of linear resistance;
- replace “Mi” with “M1” (row 84);
- replace “M1” with “M2” (Eq. (2), row 96);
- write “–7” as exponent (row 97);
- replace ”band with” with “bandwidth” (row 128)
- erase the words “of a combination” from sentence (row 132);
Author Response
Dear Reviewer:
We would like to thank the reviewers for their thoughtful comments and efforts towards improving our manuscript. In the following, we highlight general concerns of reviewers that were common and our effort to address these concerns:
- Reviewer: In the Fig. 5b, solid RF connectors used to perform the measurements are observed. Do you have designed also wearable RF connectors? Which are the actual conditions to use the designed filter?
Authors: We didn’t design the wearable RF connectors, since our network analyzer ports are compatible to SMA connectors absolutely in future work we need to design it in actual condition, but this is the preliminary study and we have to keep in mind to use it for future work.
- Reviewer: Given the flexible substrate on which the filter is built, how it will change its parameters in the case of bending? (Or what is the minimum curvature radius for which the stop band is maintained within acceptable limits?);
Authors: Regarding bending conditions we studied in previous work (for antenna and in band pass filter on reference 11 and 12 respectively) and we saw just few MHz shifted in the resonance frequency and here we have a big band pass (from 2.7 GHz to 4.7 GHz) then even shifted of frequency in some MHz does not effect on filtering then we skip that condition in this work.
- Reviewer: Effectiveness of any filter depends on the quality of the shield in which it is incorporated, especially at high frequency. Your measurements have been done in the absence of a shield? How would it be possible to build a shield for your filter, keeping all other features?
Authors: We used the copper ground shield with thickness 35 μm and we mentioned in line 56 such as:
In this design the adhesive copper sheet with constant thickness t = 35 μm has been chosen.
Reviewer: In keywords, “wearable” and “electromagnetic” are too general. I suggest to add a distinct term, as example “wearable tech device” and “electromagnetic filter”
Authors: Those comments have been done.
Reviewer: Some spellings issues that must be avoided:
Authors: All those issues are applied.
Best Regards,
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
This paper demonstrates a stop band-pass filter on a common fabric base.
1) One interesting thing is the fully-embroidered conductive thread filter loaded on a cotton substrate, whereas the filter design has already been studied. Therefore a detailed demonstration of the fabrication processes, the embroidery craft, and the characteristics of the conductive thread should be added.
2) Another issue is the lack of background on electronic textiles and their manufacturing techniques. What are the special requirements to achieve electronic textiles in comparison with conventional PCB-based mcirowave devices in design, fabrication, material, or other aspects?
3) What are the performances of the filter in a bent state, since the author claimed that it is a flexible e-textile for wearable applications.
4) Some other minor issues,
Line 61, please provide the model and the manufacturer of the SPDR.
Line 95 and 96, errors in equations (1) and (2), for example, should be M2 in equations (2).
Author Response
Dear Reviewer:
We would like to thank the reviewers for their thoughtful comments and efforts towards improving our manuscript. In the following, we highlight general concerns of reviewers that were common and our effort to address these concerns:
Reviewer: One interesting thing is the fully-embroidered conductive thread filter loaded on a cotton substrate, whereas the filter design has already been studied. Therefore, a detailed demonstration of the fabrication processes, the embroidery craft, and the characteristics of the conductive thread should be added.
Authors: The selected conductor yarn was a commercial Shieldex 117/17 dtex two-ply and was composed of 99% pure silver-plated nylon yarn 140/17 dtex with a linear resistance < 30 Ω/cm. Also for the fabrication process, by using the Digitizer Ex software (Version, Elna Company, Genève), the layout was converted to a stitch pattern. A SINGER Futura XL-550 embroidery machine with a satin fill stitch pattern has been selected in order to achieve a homogeneous yarn distribution over the surface. All those explanation was mentioned from line 60 to 67.
Reviewer: Another issue is the lack of background on electronic textiles and their manufacturing techniques. What are the special requirements to achieve electronic textiles in comparison with conventional PCB-based mcirowave devices in design, fabrication, material, or other aspects?
Authors: The explanation is added in line 19-20 such as: E-textile usually contain conductive yarns that are either spun or twisted and incorporate some amount of conductive material to enable electrical conductivity. Also The controllable electromagnetic properties of the proposed structure and the possibility of device flexibility and miniaturizability allows designing prototypes with improved performance and novel techniques, in comparison with conventional devices. This fact is crucial, since embroidery textile materials pose limitations to the achievable size, conductivity, substrate permittivity, substrate dielectric losses, and thickness of the prototypes, in comparison with standard printed circuit-board (PCB), whose fabrication techniques enable straightforward realization of the small conductive structures required as rigid circuit boards, which is explained in our previous work in reference 11.
Reviewer: What are the performances of the filter in a bent state, since the author claimed that it is a flexible e-textile for wearable applications.
Authors: Regarding bending conditions we studied in previous work (for antenna and in band pass filter on reference 11 and 12 respectively) and we saw just few MHz shifted in the resonance frequency and here we have a big band pass (from 2.7 GHz to 4.7 GHz) then even shifted of frequency in some MHz does not effect on filtering then we skip that condition in this work.
Reviewer: Line 61, please provide the model and the manufacturer of the SPDR
Authors: This line is deleted from line 61-63.
Reviewer: Line 95 and 96, errors in equations (1) and (2), for example, should be M2 in equations (2).
Authors: The comment has been applied.
Best Regards,
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
I have no more questions now.
Author Response
We would like to thank the reviewer for their thoughtful comments and efforts towards improving our manuscript.
