RECONFIGURABLE OPTICAL ADD/DROP MULTIPLEXER NETWORK ELEMENT FOR C-BAND AND L-BAND OPTICAL SIGNALS

• US 20130279908A1
• Filed: 04/23/2012
• Published: 10/24/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 04/23/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Coriant Operations, Inc. (Infinera Corp.)
• Original Assignee: Tellabs Operations Incorporated (Infinera Corp.)
• Inventors: Larikova, Julia Y., Younce, Richard C., JENKINS, DAVID WILLIAM
• Granted Patent: US 9,130,692 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 398/48
• CPC Class Codes: H04J 14/0204 Broadcast and select arrangements, e.g. with an optical splitter at the input before adding or dropping
• CPC Class Codes: H04J 14/0212 using optical switches or wavelength selective switches [WSS]
• CPC Class Codes: H04J 14/0217 Multi-degree architectures, e.g. having a connection degree greater than two

Abstract

A method for routing C-band and L-band optical signals, and a system, apparatus, and computer program that operate in accordance with the method. The method comprises selecting one or more C-band optical signals using one or more C-band components, resulting in one or more selected C-band optical signals. One or more L-band optical signals are selected using one or more L-band components, resulting in one or more selected L-band optical signals. The selected C-band and L-band optical signals are combined.

Claims

1. A system for routing C-band and L-band optical signals, comprising:

a C-band subsystem arranged to select one or more optical signals provided thereto, the optical signals provided to the C-band subsystem being C-band optical signals;

an L-band subsystem arranged to select one or more optical signals provided thereto, the optical signals provided to the L-band subsystem being L-band optical signals; and

at least one communication path for forwarding signals selected by the C-band and L-band subsystems.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein at least one of the C-band subsystem and the L-band subsystem includes a plurality of reconfigurable optical add/drop multiplexer (ROADM) modules.

3. The system of claim 2, wherein the plurality of ROADM modules includes four ROADM modules.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein at least one of the C-band subsystem and the L-band subsystem comprises:

a plurality of optical switches arranged to select the one or more optical signals provided to the at least one of the C-band subsystem and the L-band subsystem.

5. The system of claim 4, wherein the at least one of the C-band subsystem and the L-band subsystem further comprises at least one demultiplexing device arranged to demultiplex the optical signals provided to the at least one of the C-band subsystem and the L-band subsystem, and provide resulting demultiplexed optical signals to the plurality of optical switches.

6. The system of claim 5, wherein each individual one of the plurality of optical switches selects from optical signals having a same wavelength.

7. The system of claim 6, wherein the plurality of switches select from optical signals having differing wavelengths.

8. The system of claim 4, further comprising at least one multiplexer arranged to multiplex optical signals selected by the plurality of optical switches.

9. The system of claim 8, further comprising at least one amplifier arranged to amplify signals outputted by the at least one multiplexer.

10. The system of claim 9, wherein the at least one amplifier comprises at least two amplifiers, and the system further comprises a dispersion compensating unit interposed between an output of one of the at least two amplifiers and an input of another of the at least two amplifiers.

11. The system of claim 10, wherein the at least one communication path includes a combiner arranged to combine the signals selected by the C-band and L-band subsystems.

12. The system of claim 2, wherein for each subsystem, each ROADM module has at least one output coupled to at least one corresponding input of each of other ones of the ROADM modules of that subsystem, and also has at least one input coupled to at least one corresponding output of each of the other ones of the ROADM modules of that subsystem.

13. The system of claim 2, wherein each ROADM module is arranged to select at least one optical wavelength signal from among optical signals received by that ROADM module from at least other ones of the ROADM modules.

14. The system of claim 13, wherein each ROADM module is arranged to select the at least one optical wavelength signal, for each of n wavelengths

15. The system of claim 13, wherein each ROADM module is arranged to select the at least one optical wavelength signal from among both the optical signals received by that ROADM module from at least the other ones of the ROADM modules, and optical signals locally added to the ROADM module.

16. The system of claim 2, wherein each ROADM module further is arranged to provide corresponding optical signals to other ones of the ROADM modules.

17. The system of claim 16, wherein each ROADM module comprises at least one coupling device arranged to provide the corresponding optical signals to the other ones of the ROADM modules.

18. The system of claim 16, wherein each ROADM module further is arranged to drop optical signals.

19. The system of claim 1, wherein the C-band ROADM subsystem and the L-band subsystem are installed in a single rack assembly.

20. The system of claim 1, wherein the one or more C-band optical signals are of a lower bitrate than a bitrate of the one or more L-band optical signals.

21. The system of claim 1, wherein the one or more C-band optical signals are encoded using on-off keying (OOK) and the one or more L-band optical signals are encoded using polarization mode quadrature phase shift keying (PM-QPSK).

22. A method for routing C-band and L-band optical signals, comprising:

selecting one or more C-band optical signals using one or more C-band components, resulting in one or more selected C-band optical signals;

selecting one or more L-band optical signals using one or more L-band components, resulting in one or more selected L-band optical signals; and

combining the selected C-band and L-band optical signals.

23. The method of claim 22, further comprising demultiplexing a wavelength division multiplexed (WDM) optical signal into the one or more C-band optical signals and the one or more L-band optical signals.

24. The method of claim 22, wherein the one or more C-band optical signals are of a lower bitrate than a bitrate of the one or more L-band optical signals.

25. The method of claim 22, wherein the one or more C-band optical signals are encoded using on-off keying (OOK), and the one or more L-band optical signals are encoded using polarization mode quadrature phase shift keying (PM-QPSK).

26. The method of claim 25, wherein the one or more selected C-band optical signals are inputted into one or more dispersion compensating modules and the one or more selected L-band optical signals are not inputted into one or more dispersion compensating modules.