Mitigating instability in cascaded optical power controllers

A system comprising:

• a processing device, and
• a memory device configured to store a computer program having instructions that, when executed, enable the processing device to
• detect a perturbation of an optical power level in an optical line system having a plurality of cascaded optical power controllers,
• determine an estimated location to which a power controller of the plurality of cascaded optical power controllers is positioned downstream of the perturbation with respect to other power controllers of the plurality of cascaded optical power controllers, wherein the estimated location is determined based on one or more of a first parameter of how fast an error term is decreasing and a second parameter of whether or not the optical power level has experienced significant overshoot or undershoot, and
• based on the estimated location to which the power controller is positioned downstream of the perturbation, provide feedback in a control loop to reduce the effects of the perturbation.

A system comprising:

• a processing device, and
• a memory device configured to store a computer program having instructions that, when executed, enable the processing device to
• detect a perturbation of an optical power level in an optical line system having a plurality of cascaded optical power controllers,
• determine an estimated location to which a power controller of the plurality of cascaded optical power controllers is positioned downstream of the perturbation with respect to other power controllers of the plurality of cascaded optical power controllers, wherein the estimated location is determined based on one or more of a first parameter representing a decrease in an error rate that is above a first predetermined threshold and a second parameter representing an overshoot or undershoot that is above a second predetermined threshold, and
• based on the estimated location to which the power controller is positioned downstream of the perturbation, provide feedback in a control loop to reduce the effects of the perturbation.