Nickel Particle-Based Compact Flexible Antenna for Modern Communication Systems

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comment to authors.

This paper is unnecessary long that make it hard to follow. Authors need to remove the redundant write-ups. More importantly, the contribution is not clear. If the contribution is the development of a new flexible substrate, then the paper has to be written in that direction. In the reviewer’s point of view, this paper is not in the shape for publication at all. Substantial revision is required including English revision. 

Author Response

As attached.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

This work propose the use of Nikel particle dielectric substrate for the design of microstrip flexible antennas. The topic is interesting however the following suggestions aimed at improve the work quality should be taken into account by the authors:

1) You claims that the use of a Nikel particles dielectric substrate permits to better control the dielectric permittivity of the antenna substrate. In particular it should be act on the antenna electrical length, a simnple test with a standar printed dipole, or rectangular patch antenna should be provided. 

2) The soldering quality of the propose antenna prototype is very low in particular the soldering of the SMA connectors could in my opinions create problems exspecially at Ku band. 

3) The soldering problem could be the causde of the low agreement between numerical and simulated data.

4) please export the beam pattern data and replot them. The figures exported directly from CST are of low quality.

Author Response

As attached.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

I am struggling to see the novelty of the manuscript. The idea of Nickel aluminate as a flexible substrate has been discussed in [20] and the patch antenna design is not novel. There is also a number technical issues with the presentations of the results.

Questions and comments:

Introduction: it seems to me that it is out of proportion compared to the rest of the manuscript. Please consider reducing its size.

Line 123: you mentioned the antenna is etched. It looks to me that copper sheets are cut and glued to the substrate. What was the etching process?

Line 125: how did you find the permittivity of the substrate?

Line 179: how the powder turned into a solid fixable substrate?

Line 198: the second resonance is the harmonic of the first resonance. Every antenna has a harmonic so any discussion about the second resonance should be removed from the manuscript.

Line 204&205: I could not understand this sentence, “there are some pores in the substrate that why the effective are of the fabricated antenna is declined than the simulated one”. What is that mean?

Line 205: you mentioned “the permeability of the synthesis material is considered as constant in simulation but in the fabricated substrate it is little bit various”. Does the substrate have magnetic properties? If yes, where the magnetic performance come from? Why didn’t you measure the permittivity and permeability?

Line 210: Please consider not showing the harmonic resonance.

Line 246: which one is E which one is H? The quality of the figure is bad, please include a higher quality image. The red lines are missing in two of the graphs. Why there is so much difference between measured and simulation results?

 Line 249-271: why do you present a parameter study of different patch structures? The parameters are so random and it does not add any value to the manuscript.

General questions:

What is the impact of bending the antenna on its performance?

Why 42% nickel concentration was used? What is the impact of other nickel concentrations on the flexibility or permittivity of substrate?

Author Response

As attached.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 4 Report

Dear Authors,

Interesting paper.

Here are some comments:

*) Intro section, besides the materials you presented, the following ref is suggested since it presents metallized foam antennas

J. Anguera, J.P. Daniel, C. Borja, J. Mumbrú, C. Puente, T. Leduc, K. Sayegrih, and P. Van Roy, “Metallized Foams for Antenna Design: Application to Fractal-Shaped Sierpinski-Carpet Monopole”, Progress In Electromagnetics Research, PIER 104, 239-251, 2010.

*) CAn you comment what if we compare with flexible materials such as flex-film based antennas?

*) Measured efficiency: is total efficiency? Since you are using SAtimo, I assume is totalefficiency. Please say that in the paper

*) Return loss is a positive magnitude for passive devices. Please delete (-) from figures 9.

Also, do not plot return loss and VSWR, with one is enough

I hope these comments help.

Many thanks

Author Response

As attached.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

The revised version of the manuscript has been improved, the authors tried to follow the reviewers indications, in my opinion now it can be published 

Author Response

As attached.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf