Transient and switching event stabilization of fiber optic transport systems

An optical control channel signal generator, comprising:

• a plurality of broadband amplitude spontaneous emission (ASE) sources configured to produce a set of dummy channels;
• one or more optical sources configured to produce at least one signal pair, each signal pair forming a control channel in a corresponding frequency bin with a corresponding dummy channel, the signals of each signal pair separated by a first frequency interval;
• a combiner configured to combine a first signal and a second signal of a signal pair, wherein a polarization of the first signal is orthogonal to a polarization of the second signal at the output of the combiner;
• and
• at least one attenuator each configured to attenuate a corresponding signal pair based on a measured optical power of a corresponding frequency bin and responsive to a change in the measured optical power in the corresponding frequency bin based on associated dummy channels to ensure that non-linear interactions are managed to accommodate the change in the measured optical power of the associated dummy channels.

A device for power control of signals carried by an optical fiber, comprising:

• a wavelength selective switch (WSS) adapted to add one or more data-bearing channels to the optical fiber, the data-bearing channels distributed among a plurality of frequency bins;
• a processor adapted to add a set of control channels to the optical fiber, each control channel comprising a pair of signals at separate frequencies, at least one control channel in each of the plurality of frequency bins, and the processor further adds a set of dummy channels to the optical fiber, at least one dummy channel in each of the plurality of frequency bins with a corresponding at least one control channel;
• optical detectors adapted to measure an optical power in at least one of the plurality of frequency bins;
• and
• optical power control adapted to adjust an optical power of one or more control channels responsive to a change in the optical power in the at least one of the plurality of frequency bins based on associated dummy channels to maintain a substantially constant power of a frequency bin that contains the adjusted control channels to ensure that non-linear interactions are managed to accommodate the change in the optical power of the associated dummy channels.