Fault detection for all-optical add-drop multiplexer

Abstract

A fault detecting apparatus and method for a network node of an optical transmission system receives a wavelength division multiplexed (WDM) optical signal which includes a group of optical channels. The network node includes an optical demultiplexer, optical switch, optical multiplexer, and an optical channel add/drop device. Supervisory optical signals having a different wavelength than the wavelengths of the group of optical channels are generated and spliced with each optical channel by the optical demultiplexer. The supervisory channel optical power is tapped off at various points in the network node, such as the output optical channels of the demultiplexer, dropped optical channel outputs, output optical channels from the optical switch, and the output WDM optical signal of the multiplexer. The supervisory channels are monitored by a wavemeter for bypass lightpaths and dropped lightpaths. Added optical channels are monitored by monitoring a portion of the signal power in the added lightpath of the added optical channel. If the wavemeter detects the absence of the supervisory signal, or the portion of the added optical channel, this indicates a fault condition and the network control is notified to effect correction of the fault.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.