US 4,727,601 AGranted

Loop-type optical dataway system

AssigneeKabushiki Kaisha Toshiba

InventorKuniyoshi Konishi

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Abstract

A loop-type dataway system of the invention has a plurality of data transmission stations connected in a loop in a single optical transmission line. Each station has first and second optical directional couplers, an optical receiver, a gate circuit and an optical transmitter. The first optical directional coupler distributes the light signal received from the optical transmission line into two directions, i.e., to the second optical directional coupler and the optical receiver. The optical receiver photoelectrically converts the output signal distributed from the first optical direction coupler. The gate circuit couples the output signal from the optical receiver and an intra-office send signal. The optical transmitter photoelectrically converts the output signal from the gate circuit and supplies the output signal thereof to the second optical directional coupler. The second optical directional coupler couples the output light signal from the optical transmitter and the output light signal distributed from the first optical directional coupler so as to send the coupled signal to the next stage through the optical transmission line.

Claims7

Dependent claims

A loop-type optical dataway system, comprising:

a single optical transmission line;
and
a plurality of data transmission stations connected in a loop in said optical transmission line, each of said data transmission stations comprising:
a first optical directional coupler for splitting a light signal received from said optical transmission line into first and second distributed light signals;
an optical receiver for photo-electrically converting said first distributed-output light signal from said first optical directional coupler and providing a receive signal and a receive level signal indicative of a level of the first distributed-output light signal;
a station controller for receiving the receive signal from said optical receiver and for producing an intra-office send signal;
a gate circuit for combining the receive signal from said optical receiver and the intra-office send signal from said station controller;
an optical transmitter responsive to said receive level signal for electrooptically converting the output signal from said gate circuit, said transmitter amplifying the output from said gate circuit to a predetermined level when said receive level signal is present;
and
a second optical directional coupler for coupling the output light signal from said optical transmitter and the second distributed-output light signal from said first optical directional coupler and for producing a coupled signal transmitted to a following station through said optical transmission line.

7 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.