US RE40,425 E1Granted

Optical interface devices having balanced amplification

AssigneeLockheed Martin Corporation

InventorsG. Allan Whittaker, Wilber A. Williams

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Abstract

An optical interface devices (OID) routes signals entering each of its ports to all other ports. The OID passively routes the optical signals and performs no conversion of the signals into the electrical domain. In addition to signal routing, the OID also performs bi-directional amplification of the optical signals to compensate for splitting losses, coupling losses, signal variations, and to provide additional gain. As a result, the power level of a signal entering one port is the same power level at which corresponding signals exit all other ports of the OID. The OID is useful in a number of network topologies, including but not limited to bus, point-to-point, star, ring, broken ring, hub, and a tree-like topology. The OID enables signal quality to be maintained throughout the network which is especially beneficial in the transmission of Radio Frequency and other analog signals.

Claims21

Dependent claims

An optical interface device, comprising:

a first port;
a second port;
a third port;
each of the first, second, and third ports for receiving optical signals;
a first coupler for splitting optical signals from the first port into a plurality of optical signal components and for routing one of the optical signal components to each of the second and third ports;
a second coupler for splitting optical signals from the second port into a plurality of optical signal components and for routing one of the optical signal components to each of the first and third ports;
a third coupler for splitting optical signals from the third port into a plurality of optical signal components and for routing one of the optical signal components to each of the first and second ports;
a first optical amplifier located between the first and second ports for amplifying optical signals routed between the first and second ports;
a second optical amplifier located between the second and third ports for amplifying optical signals routed between the second and third ports;
a third optical amplifier located between the first and third ports for amplifying optical signals routed between the first and third ports;
wherein each of the first, second, and third optical amplifiers has a gain that is sufficient to compensate for coupling losses associated with the first, second, and third ports, respectively, and splitting losses associated with the first, second, and third splitter, respectively.

8 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.