Systems and methods for adaptive gain control to compensate OSNR penalty caused by side-lobe of MEMS-based reconfigurable optical add-drop multiplexers

A reconfigurable optical add-drop multiplexer node configured to perform adaptive gain control to compensate for an optical signal-to-noise ratio penalty caused by the side-lobes created by micro-electromechanical systems, comprising:

• an optical pre-amplifier comprising an input with multiple wavelengths;
• a micro-electromechanical system-based wavelength selective switch connected to the optical pre-amplifier, wherein the switch comprising a variable optical attenuator on the connection from the optical pre-amplifier, and wherein the wavelength selective switch is configured to drop a plurality of wavelengths;
• an optical post-amplifier connected to a coupler comprising a variable optical attenuator on each of a plurality of input ports, wherein the coupler is configured to add a plurality of wavelengths;
• and
• an optical monitor configured to monitor optical power of each of the multiple wavelengths at the optical pre-amplifier;
• wherein each of the variable optical attenuators is adaptively adjusted responsive to amplified spontaneous emission power located in side-lobes of each of the multiple wavelengths.

A method of calculating the amplified spontaneous emission caused by the side-lobes created by micro-electromechanical system-based reconfigurable optical add-drop multiplexers and compensating for the corresponding optical signal-to-noise ratio penalty, comprising:

• measuring power for each of a plurality of wavelengths at a node;
• utilizing a derived formula to calculate the amplified spontaneous emission power located in side-lobes of each of the plurality of wavelengths;
• for each of the plurality of wavelengths not at a target power value, adjusting power of each of the plurality of wavelengths responsive to the amplified spontaneous emission power located in side-lobes of each of the plurality of wavelengths;
• if the power of one or more of the plurality of wavelengths is adjusted, estimating amplified spontaneous emission power for each of the plurality of wavelengths at the node;
• and
• adjusting a gain of an amplifier responsive to the estimate of amplified spontaneous emission power for each of the plurality of wavelengths at the node.