Design of a high-speed packet-switched OTDM network

The fast growth of aggregated Internet traffic and new bandwidth-intensive telecommunication applications are subject to a tremendous bandwidth demand. This demand can only be satisfied by optical networks. In this project, an optically transparent packet-switched OTDM network is to be further investigated and developed based on our previous works and results including the design and investigation of high-speed optical processing sub-systems such as OTDM demultiplexers, optical packet compression/decompression units, and all-optical header recognition, as well as our theoretical and practical works in MAC protocol design, performance evaluation and implementation. Particularly, influence of the chromatic dispersion and polarization mode dispersion (PMD) as well as the compensation of both effects will be taken into account. Moreover, new MAC signaling techniques, MAC protocol implementation using high-speed electronics and programmable logic design as well as connection of the high-speed packet-switched OTDM network to current used networks (Gigabit Ethernet, SONET/SDH, WDM), is to be investigated. The high-speed packet-switched OTDM network to be built in the future should serve as a testbed for further research work in the fields of ultra high-speed optical networks, MAC protocol implementation and network interoperability.

Photonic networks are probably the most appropriate solution to meet growing bandwidth requirements in the present as well as in the future Internet. The very high bandwidth of optical fibers can be exploited to some extent by multiplexing the data either in the wavelength, in the time or in the code domain. However, new telecommunications applications require a dynamic, high-capacity optical network with the capability to carry heterogeneous network traffic. This cannot be obtained by employing a conventional channel-based or a circuit- switched technique. This project has concentrated on the design of access nodes for all-optical networks that provide a dynamic high- speed access to the optical fiber. This can be achieved by transmitting data packets in a dynamic manner at a very high bit rate. In order to achieve very high bit rates, the data rate of the packet to be transmitted is up-converted in an optical rate conversion unit located in the node. The packets are then transmitted through the all-optical packet- switched network, while fast optical header processing at the transit nodes allows fast switching, data rate/format transparency, and low network latency. It has been shown that network nodes, when equipped with the proposed high-speed optical subsystems, can provide transmission, reception, and switching of optical packets at high bit rates beyond 100 Gbit/s in an effective manner, and thus can build a dynamic high-capacity packet-switched network capable of dealing with heterogeneous network traffic.