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US 2021/0239910 A1Published application
Scalable and modular automated fiber optic cross-connect systems
AssigneeTelescent Inc.
InventorAnthony Stephen Kewitsch
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AssigneeTelescent Inc.
InventorAnthony Stephen Kewitsch
Estimating the term…
A highly scalable and modular automated optical cross connect switch devices which exhibit low loss and scalability to high port counts. A device for the programmable interconnection of large numbers of optical fibers (100s-1000s) is provided, whereby a two-dimensional array of fiber optic connections is mapped in an ordered and rule-based fashion into a one-dimensional array with tensioned fiber optic circuit elements tracing substantially straight lines there between. Fiber optic elements are terminated in a stacked arrangement of flexible fiber optic circuit elements with a capacity to retain excess fiber lengths while maintaining an adequate bend radius. The combination of these elements partitions the switch volume into multiple independent, non-interfering zones, which retain their independence for arbitrary and unlimited numbers of reconfigurations. The separation into spaced-apart zones provides clearance for one or more robotic actuators to enter the free volume substantially adjacent to the two-dimensional array of connectors and mechanically reconfigure connectors without interrupting other circuits.
For improved management of dense interconnections of signal carrying strands, a disentangled and physically ordered arrangement for interconnecting longitudinally extended strands residing within a limited volume bounded by a two-dimensional array of terminals with a height H1 and array column spacing D at a first plane and by a one-dimensional port array of height H2, parallel to the columns of two-dimensional array and located at a second plane spaced apart from the first plane by a distance Z, wherein
A system of spatially reconfigurable, cross-connected strands for carrying a multiplicity of independent signals across an intervening gap, the collection of strands defining a geometric braid within the gap, the geometric braid having a number of physically separate subbraids emerging from a common extended, linear origin in a first plane and separating out at diverging angles to a second plane comprised of a multiplicity of columns of parallel, spaced apart terminals, wherein each subbraid comprises:
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.