Optical switching

An optical switch for aligning at least one input optical communication signal from at least one input fiber of an input fiber bundle with at least one output fiber of an output fiber bundle, said optical switch comprising:

• a light source configured to produce a control beam;
• a beam combiner configured to combine a communication beam and the control beam into a co-linear path towards a MEMS mirror, wherein the MEMS mirror is supported by a gimbal and a plurality of actuators are configured to rotate the MEMS mirror about the gimbal in different directions;
• a beam splitter configured to split the communication beam and the control beam after reflection by the MEMS mirror;
• an image sensor configured to capture an image of the control beam after interacting with the beam splitter;
• one or more hardware processors in communication with the image sensor and configured to:
• actuate at least some of the plurality of actuators to tilt the MEMS mirror to align the control beam with a desired location on the MEMS mirror associated with a first output fiber based on first calibration data;
• determine a first position of a centroid of the control beam on the image sensor;
• and
• determine, using machine learning, a correction to the first calibration data based at least in part on the first position.

An optical switch for aligning at least one input optical communication signal from at least one input fiber of an input fiber bundle with at least one output fiber of an output fiber bundle, said optical switch comprising:

• a light source configured to produce a control beam;
• a beam combiner configured to combine a communication beam and the control beam into a co-linear path towards a MEMS mirror, wherein the MEMS mirror is supported by a gimbal and a plurality of actuators are configured to rotate the MEMS mirror about the gimbal in different directions;
• a beam splitter configured to split the communication beam and the control beam after reflection by the MEMS mirror;
• an image sensor configured to capture an image of the control beam after interacting with the beam splitter;
• one or more hardware processors in communication with the image sensor and configured to:
• receive a first request to align the communication beam with a first output fiber;
• actuate at least some of the plurality of actuators to tilt the MEMS mirror to align the control beam with a desired location on the MEMS mirror associated with the first output fiber based on first calibration data;
• determine a first position of a centroid of the control beam on the image sensor;
• and
• predict using a machine learning classifier, a time to end of life of the optical switch based at least in part on the first calibration data and the first position of the centroid.