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US 8,285,145 B2Granted
Modular colorless and directionless multi-degree reconfigurable optical add/drop multiplexer node with in-service upgradeability
AssigneeNEC Laboratories America, Inc.
InventorsPhilip N. Ji, Yoshiaki Aono, Hiromitsu Sugahara, Ting Wang
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Abstract
In a dense wavelength division multiplexed optical network, an upgradeable, modular, colorless, directionless, reconfigurable add/drop multiplexer having a small form factor. By using wavelength selective switches and couplers, the above features are achieved without the need for photonic cross connects.
Claims12
A reconfigurable add/drop multiplexer (ROADM) node, comprising:
- a plurality of input splitters configured to split input signals;
- a plurality of transponder aggregators (TAs), each configured to receive a signal from each of the plurality of splitters and to select which signals get to drop;
- and
- a plurality of output wavelength-selective switches (WSSes), each configured to receive a signal from respective ones of the splitters, to receive a signal from each of the TAs, and to select signals to drop for each degree of the node;
- wherein the input splitters are 1:(2N) splitters, providing N signals to the TAs, N−1 signals to the output WSSes, and having one upgrade output configured for connection to an upgrade input splitter, where N is the number of degrees of the node.
2 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.