Highly reliable and large-scale subsystem-modular optical cross-connect.

Area of Science:

• Photonics
• Telecommunications Engineering
• Network Architecture

Background:

• High-capacity photonic networks require reliable and scalable optical cross-connect (OXC) architectures.
• Existing OXC designs face challenges in simultaneously achieving both port scalability and failure resiliency.
• Wavelength selective switches (WSSs) are critical components in modern photonic networks, but their failures can impact network reliability.

Purpose of the Study:

• To propose a novel optical cross-connect (OXC) architecture.
• To achieve simultaneous port scalability and failure resiliency in photonic networks.
• To reduce annual path downtime in high-capacity optical networks.

Main Methods:

• The proposed OXC architecture utilizes a subsystem-modular structure for port scalability.
• Consideration of both 1xM and MxM wavelength selective switches (WSSs).
• Implementation of an intra-node protection mechanism tailored to the OXC architecture for enhanced reliability.
• Computer simulations to evaluate network performance.

Main Results:

• The subsystem-modular structure effectively provides port scalability.
• The intra-node protection mechanism significantly improves network reliability.
• Computer simulations demonstrated a drastic decrease in annual path downtime.
• The proposed architecture requires only a small number of WSSs to achieve substantial improvements.

Conclusions:

• The novel OXC architecture successfully integrates port scalability and failure resiliency.
• The proposed design offers a promising solution for building reliable, high-capacity photonic networks.
• This approach minimizes WSS component count while maximizing network uptime and performance.