206 results about "Optical cross-connect" patented technology

This invention discloses highly scalable and modular automated optical cross connect switch devices which exhibit low loss and scalability to high port counts. In particular, a device for the programmable interconnection of large numbers of optical fibers (100's-1000's) is provided, whereby a two-dimensional array of fiber optic connections is mapped in an ordered and rule-based fashion into a one-dimensional array with tensioned fiber optic circuit elements tracing substantially straight lines there between. Fiber optic elements are terminated in a stacked arrangement of flexible fiber optic circuit elements with a capacity to retain excess fiber lengths while maintaining an adequate bend radius. The combination of these elements partitions the switch volume into multiple independent, non-interfering zones, which retain their independence for arbitrary and unlimited numbers of reconfigurations. The separation into spaced-apart zones provides clearance for one or more robotic actuators to enter the free volume substantially adjacent to the two-dimensional array of connectors and mechanically reconfigure connectors without interrupting other circuits.

Embodiments of the present invention provide an optical network and switch architecture that provides non-blocking routing from an ingress router to an egress router in the network on a port-to-port basis. The present invention provides routing for fixed and variable length optical data packets of varying types (including Internet Protocol (IP), data, voice, TDM, ATM, voice over data, etc.) at speeds from sub-Terabit per second (Tbps), to significantly in excess of Petabit per second (Pbps). The present invention includes the functionality of both large IP routers and optical cross-connects combined with a unique, non-blocking optical switching and routing techniques to obtain benefits in speed and interconnected capacity in a data transport network. The present invention can utilize a TWDM wave slot transport scheme in conjunction with a just-in-time scheduling pattern and a unique optical switch configuration that provides for non-blocking transport of data from ingress to egress.One embodiment of the present invention includes a router comprising an ingress edge unit with one or more ports and an egress edge unit with one or more ports connected by a switch fabric. The ingress edge unit can receive optical data and convert the optical data into a plurality of micro lambdas, each micro lambda containing data destined for a particular egress edge port. The ingress edge unit can convert the incoming data to micro lambdas by generating a series of short-term parallel data bursts across multiple wavelengths. The ingress edge unit can also wavelength division multiplex and time domain multiplex each micro lambda for transmission to the switch fabric in a particular order. The switch fabric can receive the plurality of micro lambdas and route the plurality of micro lambdas to the plurality of egress edge units in a non-blocking manner. The router can also include a core controller that receives scheduling information from the plurality of ingress edge units and egress edge units. Based on the scheduling information, the core controller can develop a schedule pattern (i.e., a TWDM cycle) to coordinate the time domain multiplexing of micro lambdas at the plurality of ingress edge units and non-blocking switching of the micro lambdas at the switch fabric.

Communication is restored in a fiber optic network by placing error detection circuitry at the add / drop ports of the network nodes of the network. If the error detection circuitry detects an error condition for a communication signal traversing a normal communication path within the network, the communication signal is rerouted along a restoration communication path that is node and span disjoint from the first communication path. By requiring a restoration path to be node and span disjoint from the normal communication path, error detection circuitry need only be placed at the end nodes of the normal communication path. By allowing each node in the restoration path to dynamically choose the particular channels that can accommodate a particular communication signal at the time of the restoration, efficient use of available resources is gained. The result is a cost effective network that restores communication in times competitive to that of SONET rings.

An optical cross-connect switch comprises a base (216), a flap (211) and one or more electrically conductive landing pads (222) connected to the flap (211). The flap (211) has a bottom portion that is movably coupled to the base (216) such that the flap (211) is movable with respect to a plane of the base (216) from a first orientation to a second orientation. The one or more landing pads (222) are electrically isolated from the flap (211) and electrically coupled to be equipotential with a landing surface.

An optical coupling device including: at least a first input port for delivering an optical input signal beam that includes a plurality of wavelength channels; at least a first optical output port for receiving an optical output signal beam; a wavelength dispersion element for spatially separating the plurality of wavelength channels in the optical input signal beam to form a plurality of spatially separated wavelength channel beams; an optical coupling device for independently modifying the phase of each of the spatially separated wavelength channel beams such that, for at least one wavelength channel beam, a selected fraction of the light is coupled to the first output port and a fraction of the light is coupled away from the first output port.

A method and apparatus for an optical reroutable redundancy scheme. According to one embodiment of the invention, a wavelength division multiplexing optical network includes a number of nodes each having an optical cross connect and each having stored therein a database representing conversion free connectivity from that node to others of the nodes. In addition, each of the nodes employs a source based scheme with the database to provision optical circuits in real time and an optical reroutable redundancy scheme.

Methods, apparatus and systems for regenerating, monitoring and bridging optical signals through an optical cross-connect switch to provide increased reliability. A self testing method, apparatus and system for an optical cross-connect switch. An optical-to-electrical-to-optical converter (O / E / O) is provided in an optical cross-connect switch to provide optical-electrical-optical conversion. I / O port cards having an optical-to-electrical-to-optical converter are referred to as smart port cards while I / O port cards without an optical-to-electrical-to-optical converter are referred to as passive port cards. Test port / monitor cards are also provided for testing optical cross-connect switches. Methods, apparatus and systems for performing bridging, test access, and supporting redundant optical switch fabrics are also disclosed.

A transmission apparatus for coupling an optical signal transmission section and an electrical signal transmission section through an opto-electric two-way conversion unit, where the electrical signal transmission section is comprised of a SONET / SDH signal processing function unit and a generalized multi protocol label switching (GMPLS) function processing function unit cooperating with that function unit and where the optical signal transmission section is comprised of an optical add / drop function unit for transferring an optical signal with the electrical signal transmission section through the conversion unit and an optical cross-connect function unit for switching paths in wavelength units of the optical signal with the electrical signal transmission section, whereby the capital cost and running costs of an optical network for transmitting an IP signal can be greatly reduced.

A method of detecting a failure in a network, which includes a transport plane comprised of a plurality of communication nodes performing optical cross-connect and a control plane comprised of a plurality of control nodes that are connected to and control the respective communication nodes, includes the steps of transmitting, from a control node connected to a communication node having detected a failure to an adjacent control node, a failure information message having a time indication indicative of a time at which the failure is detected, and identifying, at a given control node which received the failure information message, a location of the failure in response to the time indication.