Reconfigurable Multi-Beam Receiver Based on Microwave Photonics Technology

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear Authors:

The article looks good and relevant, however there are some issues that should be considered:

1- In lines 129, 130, 137, 139, and 141, The "log" to base 2 is written wrongly. It should be like in equation 1.

2- Figures 5, 6, and 7 are not clear. Must be reproduced with bold font and stronger light style.

3- You did not show what software is used for simulation.

4- The design results should be verified practically to compare with simulation results.

5- A comparison table should be included before the conclusion part with related work.

6- References are not enough and not up to date.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Authors in this research work have presented and investigated a photonic multi-beam receiver. The working mode can be reconfigured by controlling the optical switch and choosing suitable splitters. According to the communication scenarios, the optical signals are sent to the splitter, which has suitable ports to divide the signal into required numbers. The topic and concept of the paper are interesting and they have been supported with promising results. But, before final recommendation authors are requested to carefully address the following comments to improve its quality.

1) Please add application of the proposed work in the title of the manuscript.

2) Design process of the proposed multi-beam photonic receiver should be briefly discussed in the abstract section.

3) Advantages of the proposed receiver should be highlighted in the abstract section.

4) Some numerical achievements should be added in the abstract section.

5) Introduction section can be improved by a proper extension by adding more discussions and references. For example, antenna systems are very important to design receiver for various applications in different frequency bands. Therefore, authors are suggested to provide some discussions on antenna systems. Below are helpful suggestions.

"On-Chip Antenna Design Using the Concepts of Metamaterial and SIW Principles Applicable to Terahertz Integrated Circuits Operating over 0.6–0.622 THz" International Journal of Antennas and Propagation, Volume 2020, Article ID 6653095, 9 pages, https://doi.org/10.1155/2020/6653095.

“Broadband 3-D Shared Aperture High Isolation Nine-Element Antenna Array for On-Demand Millimeter-Wave 5G Applications”, Optik, Volume 267, 169708, October 2022.

"An Innovative Antenna Array with High Inter Element Isolation for Sub-6 GHz 5G MIMO Communication Systems", Scientific Reports, 12, 7907, 2022.

"A Comprehensive Survey on Antennas On-Chip Based on Metamaterial, Metasurface, and Substrate Integrated Waveguide Principles for Millimeter-Waves and Terahertz Integrated Circuits and Systems," IEEE Access, vol. 10, pp. 3668-3692, 2022.

"Enhanced radiation gain and efficiency of a metamaterial inspired wideband microstrip antenna using substrate integrated waveguide technology for sub-6 GHz wireless communication systems", Microw Opt Technol Lett, Volume 63, Issue 7, Pages 1892-1898, July 2021.

"MTM- and SIW-Inspired Bowtie Antenna Loaded with AMC for 5G mm-Wave Applications" International Journal of Antennas and Propagation, Volume 2021, Article ID 6658819, 7 pages https://doi.org/10.1155/2021/6658819.

“Low-Interacted Multiple Antenna Systems Based on Metasurface-Inspired Isolation Approach for MIMO Applications”, Arab J Sci Eng, 47, 2629–2638 (2022).

6) Figs. 1, 2, and 3 show the conventional multi-beam receiver, structure descending-precedence, and structure equal-precedence, respectively. The provided block diagrams can be supported with more discussions to better understand readers. Also, the texts inside the boxes can be presented with bigger font size.

7) Quality of figures 5, 6, and is poor. In general, most of the figures should be presented with higher quality images.

8) Why did the authors not present triple beam mode in Figs. 5, 6, and 7?

9) Before concluding the manuscript, it would be nice to add a comparison section to compare the proposed work with prior art and highlight its advantages.

10) Conclusion can be supported with some numerical results.

11) Reference part needs to be improved by a proper extension as per above mentioned suggestions.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

The authors present in this  manuscript a novel photonic multi-beam receiver. In their proposal they consider that the working mode  can be reconfigured by controlling the optical switch and choosing suitable splitters. They show that the Equal-precedence (structure EP)  is more efficient than descending-precedence (structure DP) structure reconfiguration. The numerical calculation indecate that inconsistency in phase or in amplitude can introduce losses in signal propoagation. However the authors do not consider any loosse in the signal and how the effeciency of detectors could affect the measured singal and how this disturbes the qualifications of the control parameters.

As mentioned phase and amplitude inconsistencies degrade the multi-beam reconfigurable structure. However, the authors only say that above a certain range of values for these two parameters there must be a compensation, but they do not present anything congruent. No simulation or proposal of how this compensation should be done.

Another important aspect to consider is the real world compared with this simulations that not considered in this manuscript.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear Authors:

1- The article now looks better.

2- But still figures 5, 6, and 7 are not improved. Plots of these figures are not clear using such a weak line style. I am quite sure that plots can be made much better from the "plot properties".

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The reviewers' comments and concerns were carefully considered by properly addressing them during revision. The modified version presents a higher quality work than its initial one, so there are no more technical comments from this reviewer's point of view. 

Author Response

we would like to thank you again for valuable comments and suggestions.