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AssigneeTelcordia Technologies, Inc.
InventorsGee-Kung Chang, Georgios Ellinas, John K. Gamelin, Muhammed Zafar Iqbal, Mamun R. Rashid Khandker
Estimating the term…
A cross-connect for a multi-ring, multi-channel telecommunications network, especially for a wavelength-division multiplexed (WDM) optical network. Each of the interconnected rings is self-healing by provision of a redundant counter-rotating ring or excess capacity on pairs of counter-rotating rings. Because an interconnect between self-healing rings does not need to connect working to protection fibers, or similarly redundant fibers, the complexity of the interconnect can be substantially reduced. For several important architectures, the interconnect can be decomposed into one or two 3x3 interconnects. Further, a wide-sense non-blocking 3x3 interconnect can be advantageously implemented as four 2x2 switches, which may be a basic building block of optical switches. A novel algorithm is available to add new paths through such a 3x3 interconnect. The interconnect can be decomposed into one or two 4x4 interconnects when another pair of add/drop lines are added. Such an architecture provides full connectivity between user nodes connected to the add/drop lines and user nodes attached to the rings.
A cross-connect for interconnecting at least two unidirectional automatic protection switching self-healing communication rings, each ring comprising at least a first optical fiber propagating in a respective first direction and a second optical fiber propagating in a respective second direction opposite said respective first direction, said cross-connect comprising a switching element that interconnects said first optical fiber of said first communication ring to said first optical fiber of said second communication ring but wherein said switching element does not interconnect either of said first optical fibers of said first and second communication rings to either of said second optical fibers of said first and second communication rings, and wherein said switching element does not interconnect said second optical fibers of said first and second communication rings.
A cross-connect for interconnecting at least two unidirectional path-protected self-healing communication rings, each ring comprising at least a first optical fiber propagating in a respective first direction and a second optical fiber propagating in a respective second direction opposite said respective first direction, said cross-connect comprising:
A cross-connect for interconnecting at least two bi-directional automatic protection switching self-healing communication rings, each ring comprising at least a first working optical fiber propagating in a first direction, a second working optical fiber propagating in a direction opposite to said first working optical fiber, a first protection optical fiber associated with said first working optical fiber and propagating in a direction opposite to said first working optical fiber, and a second protection optical fiber associated with said second working optical fiber and propagating in a direction opposite to said second working optical fiber, said cross-connect comprising:
A cross-connect for interconnecting at least two self-healing communication rings, each of said communication rings comprising at least one pair of counter-propagating fibers, said cross-connect comprising at least one switching element:
A method for controlling interconnected self-healing communication rings, each of said communication rings comprising at least one pair of counter-propagating fibers, said communication rings being interconnected by at least one switching element wherein said at least one switching element is connected to at most a single fiber among said at least one pair of fibers of each of said communication rings and wherein said at least one switching element does not provide full connectivity between said pairs of fibers of said communication rings, said method comprising:
A 3×3 switch, comprising:
A method of controlling four 2×2 switches interconnected to form a wide-sense non-blocking 3×3 switch, comprising the steps of:
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.