Distance-adaptive modulation is effective at enhancing network capacity as it allows the maximum possible modulation order to be selected for each optical path. However, present single-carrier systems can only select just one modulation order for each optical path and hence the adaptability to transmission characteristics is strictly limited. In contrast, digital subcarrier multiplexing systems can select a combination of modulation orders for multiple subcarriers on each optical path and can flexibly adapt to various transmission characteristics. This paper numerically evaluates the transmission characteristics of digital subcarrier multiplexing systems. The interaction between laser phase noise and chromatic dispersion is well examined by extensive simulations, and two-phase estimation methods are compared. The results show that digital subcarrier multiplexing systems with the appropriate phase estimation method enable longer transmission distances.
The popularity of high-capacity communication services such as video streaming and cloud computing has accelerated the growth in IP traffic. In order to effectively manage and maintain networking systems, various intelligent technologies based on software-defined networking (SDN) have been widely studied. An SDN system that offers flexible optical path management exploiting optical performance monitoring, digital signal processing, and resource allocation is expected to realize higher capacity networks by lowering margins needed to offset system uncertainty. In this paper, we provide a comprehensive survey of optical path management schemes based on machine learning.
To satisfy the ever-increasing traffic demands in a cost-effective manner, the transmission capacity per wavelength must be increased. The use of high-order modulation and high-baud modulation can increase the capacity per wavelength. However, such signal forms are susceptible to IQ impairments created in the transceiver since symbol distance and symbol duration are extremely short. The IQ impairments can be alleviated by adaptive finite-impulse-response (FIR) filters in the receiver. However, transmitter IQ phase imbalance and transmitter IQ power imbalance cannot be eliminated completely in the receiver-side digital signal processing (DSP). Furthermore, to eliminate transmitter IQ skew, additional filters need to be implemented in the receiver DSP. Therefore, transmitter IQ impairments should be calibrated at the transmitter side to enhance demodulation performance and cost efficiency. In this paper, we propose a novel method for measuring transmitter IQ impairments. In our proposed scheme, transmitter IQ impairments are calculated from the tap coefficients of the adaptive filters adopted in the measurement system. In addition, our proposed scheme can estimate transmitter IQ impairments even when other impairments contaminate the signal. With the estimated value, transmitter-side DSP can easily eliminate the transmitter IQ impairments with digital buffers. Simulations using 64 Gbaud 64-QAM signals show that the estimation error of IQ phase imbalance is less than 1.5 degree, that of IQ power imbalance is less than 0.2 dB, and that of IQ skew is less than 0.05 ps even if the signal is contaminated by other impairments.
Digital coherent reception is an attractive candidate for increasing the channel capacity without expanding the bandwidth needed. The receiver DSP circuit must be able to compensate for the IQ-phase/power mismatch with low computation power requirements. In this paper, we propose a novel DSP circuit suitable for short-reach transmission systems including intra-datacenter networks. The proposed DSP circuit offers polarization-mode demultiplexing, compensation for IQ-phase/power mismatch, and estimation of carrier phase and frequency offset. The proposed DSP circuit consists of three-stage one-tap FIR filters; therefore, complicated calculations are not required. Its good demodulation performance is confirmed by simulations.
We propose a cost-effective metro network architecture with fiber-granular routing and path-granular add/drop operations together with its ILP-based design algorithm. The proposal alleviates the impact of filtering impairment while using already deployed OXC/ROADM nodes. Numerical simulations on several real-world metro topologies verify that it increases the spectral efficiency compared to the ideal method for DWDM networks.
The introduction of quasi-Nyquist wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM) reduces unused frequency resources and hence attains high spectral efficiency. Applying quasi-Nyquist WDM to optical-path networks using wavelengthselective switches (WSSs) is hindered by two factors: the limited bandwidth resolution of WSS passbands and the significant spectrum narrowing occasioned by WSS traversal. In this paper, we propose a novel quasi-Nyquist WDM network architecture, where the bundle-based wavelength assignment and receiver-side partial-response spectrum shaping are simultaneously utilized so as to resolve the two problems. Extensive computer simulations show that the proposed network architecture increases the maximum attainable node-hop count compared to the conventional transmission systems.
Optical-path networks based on wavelength-selective switches (WSSs) can cost-effectively process wavelength-divisionmultiplexed (WDM) signals. To deal with the continuously increasing network traffic, the spectral efficiency must be improved by minimizing guardband bandwidths. Quasi-Nyquist WDM systems are seen as offering the highest spectral efficiency. However, such highly dense WDM systems suffer from signal-spectrum narrowing induced by the nonrectangular passbands of WSSs. Furthermore, widely deployed WSSs cannot process quasi-Nyquist WDM signals since the signal-alignment granularity does not match the passband resolution of the WSSs. In this paper, we propose a network architecture that enables quasi-Nyquist WDM networking. First, multiple channels are bundled so that the total channel bandwidth matches the WSS-passband resolution. Second, the number of spectrum-narrowing events of each path is limited by our restriction-aware algorithm. These proposals allow a 100-GHz bandwidth to accommodate three 100-Gbps DP-QPSK signals aligned with 33.3-GHz spacing and a 200-GHz bandwidth to accommodate three 400-Gbps dual-carrier DP-16QAM signals aligned with 66.6-GHz spacing. Intensive network analyses confirm that the spectral efficiency is improved by up to 46.4%. Feasibility is verified by transmission experiments using 69-channel 400-Gbps dual-carrier DP-16QAM signals aligned with 66.6-GHz spacing in the extended C-band. The fiber capacity of 27.6 Tbps and the transmission distance of 800 km are attained by our proposed quasi-Nyquist WDM networking.
The traffic volume processed within the datacenter increases exponentially. In a typical datacenter, top-of-rack (ToR) switches connected to servers are interconnected via multi-stage electrical switches. The electrical switches require power-consuming optical-to-electrical and electrical-to-optical conversion. To resolve the problem, a single optical switch needs to be introduced to offload large-capacity flows. The optical switch in the datacenter must have a large number of input/output ports to support many ToR switches. The combination of delivery-and-coupling (DC) switches and wavelength-routing (WR) switches comprised of 1xN non-cyclic arrayed-waveguide gratings (AWGs) can attain high-port-count switches. To further increase the port count, the system loss must be reduced or higher-power transmitters must be used. To overcome this difficulty, we propose novel optical-switch architecture in which nxN uniform-loss and cyclic-frequency (ULCF) AWGs are utilized for the WR-switch part, where the system loss can be reduced by the factor of n. To confirm the effectiveness of our proposal, 12x48 ULCF AWGs were newly fabricated with planar-lightwave-circuit (PLC) technology. Part of a 1,536x1,536 optical switch was constructed, and good transmission performance was experimentally confirmed by bit-error-ratio measurements in 96-wavelength 32-Gbaud DP-QPSK signals in the full C-band. The throughput was 153.6 Tbps.
We analyze the maximum transmission distance and hop count of M-QAM signals, where link and node transmission characteristics are jointly considered. With the modulation format optimally determined by the analyses, spectral efficiencies of ultra-dense wavelength-division-multiplexing (WDM) networks are maximized.
Ever-increasing intra-datacenter traffic will spur the introduction of high-baud rates and high-order modulation formats. Increasing symbol rates and modulation levels decreases tolerance against transmission impairment that includes chromatic dispersion. Transmission distance in warehouse-scale datacenters can be several kilometers, and then management of chromatic dispersion is necessary. Dispersion-compensating fibers are widely deployed in backbone networks, however, applying them in datacenters is not cost-effective since wavelength channels are coarsely multiplexed. In digital coherent systems, signal distortion due to chromatic dispersion can be resolved in digital domain; however, it will take long time before coherent systems can be introduced in datacenter networks because of their high cost. In this paper, we propose a novel impairment mitigation method employing machine learning. The proposed method is effective even after non-coherent detection and hence it can be applied to cost-sensitive intra-datacenter networks. The machine learns optimum symbol-decision criteria from a sequence of dispersed training signals, and it discriminates payload signals in accordance with the established decision criteria. With the scheme, the received signals can be demodulated in the presence of large chromatic dispersion. The transmission distance thus can be extended without relying on costly optical dispersion compensation. Since information of transmission links is not a priori required, the proposed scheme can easily be applied to any datacenter network. We conduct transmission experiments using 400-Gbps channels each of which comprises 8-subcarrier 28-Gbaud 4-ary pulse-amplitude-modulation (PAM-4) signals, and confirm the effectiveness of the proposed scheme.
We propose introducing aligned frequency assignment to each bandwidth channel, i.e., the semi-flexible grid, with the goal of minimizing frequency slot fragmentation under dynamic flexible-grid network expansion considering the expected need for channel capacity upgrades. In semi-flexible grid networks, for each set of channels having the same frequency bandwidth, a regular grid is defined where its spacing is the same as the required bandwidth and channels are aligned to their corresponding grids. A network expansion algorithm is developed that maximizes the efficiency of semiflexible grid assignment to achieve efficient channel bandwidth upgrading. Numerical experiments prove that the number of fibers necessary and the degree of fragmentation in the frequency domain are reduced by 15% and 80%, respectively, compared to conventional flexible grid networks accommodating the same traffic.
Intra-datacenter traffic is growing more than 20% a year. In typical datacenters, many racks/pods including servers are interconnected via multi-tier electrical switches. The electrical switches necessitate power-consuming optical-to- electrical (OE) and electrical-to-optical (EO) conversion, the power consumption of which increases with traffic. To overcome this problem, optical switches that eliminate costly OE and EO conversion and enable low power consumption switching are being investigated. There are two major requirements for the optical switch. First, it must have a high port count to construct reduced tier intra-datacenter networks. Second, switching speed must be short enough that most of the traffic load can be offloaded from electrical switches. Among various optical switches, we focus on those based on arrayed-waveguide gratings (AWGs), since the AWG is a passive device with minimal power consumption. We previously proposed a high-port-count optical switch architecture that utilizes tunable lasers, route-and-combine switches, and wavelength-routing switches comprised of couplers, erbium-doped fiber amplifiers (EDFAs), and AWGs. We employed conventional external cavity lasers whose wavelength-tuning speed was slower than 100 ms. In this paper, we demonstrate a large-scale optical switch that offers fast wavelength routing. We construct a 720×720 optical switch using recently developed lasers whose wavelength-tuning period is below 460 μs. We evaluate the switching time via bit-error-ratio measurements and achieve 470-μs switching time (includes 10-μs guard time to handle EDFA surge). To best of our knowledge, this is the first demonstration of such a large-scale optical switch with practical switching
time.
An effective solution to the continuous Internet traffic expansion is to offload traffic to lower layers such as the L2 or L1 optical layers. One possible approach is to introduce dynamic optical path operations such as adaptive establishment/tear down according to traffic variation. Path operations cannot be done instantaneously; hence, traffic prediction is essential. Conventional prediction techniques need optimal parameter values to be determined in advance by averaging long-term variations from the past. However, this does not allow adaptation to the ever-changing short-term variations expected to be common in future networks. In this paper, we propose a real-time optical path control method based on a machinelearning technique involving support vector machines (SVMs). A SVM learns the most recent traffic characteristics, and so enables better adaptation to temporal traffic variations than conventional techniques. The difficulty lies in determining how to minimize the time gap between optical path operation and buffer management at the originating points of those paths. The gap makes the required learning data set enormous and the learning process costly. To resolve the problem, we propose the adoption of multiple SVMs running in parallel, trained with non-overlapping subsets of the original data set. The maximum value of the outputs of these SVMs will be the estimated number of necessary paths. Numerical experiments prove that our proposed method outperforms a conventional prediction method, the autoregressive moving average method with optimal parameter values determined by Akaike’s information criterion, and reduces the packet-loss ratio by up to 98%.
We propose a novel optical network architecture that uses waveband virtual links, each of which can carry several optical paths, to directly bridge distant node pairs. Future photonic networks should not only transparently cover extended areas but also expand fiber capacity. However, the traversal of many ROADM nodes impairs the optical signal due to spectrum narrowing. To suppress the degradation, the bandwidth of guard bands needs to be increased, which degrades fiber frequency utilization. Waveband granular switching allows us to apply broader pass-band filtering at ROADMs and to insert sufficient guard bands between wavebands with minimum frequency utilization offset. The scheme resolves the severe spectrum narrowing effect. Moreover, the guard band between optical channels in a waveband can be minimized, which increases the number of paths that can be accommodated per fiber. In the network, wavelength path granular routing is done without utilizing waveband virtual links, and it still suffers from spectrum narrowing. A novel network design algorithm that can bound the spectrum narrowing effect by limiting the number of hops (traversed nodes that need wavelength path level routing) is proposed in this paper. This algorithm dynamically changes the waveband virtual link configuration according to the traffic distribution variation, where optical paths that need many node hops are effectively carried by virtual links. Numerical experiments demonstrate that the number of necessary fibers is reduced by 23% compared with conventional optical path networks.
We propose a novel optical path routing mechanism that combines coarse-granularity optical multicast with fine-granularity add/drop and block. We implement the proposal in an optical cross-connect node with broadcast-and-select functionality that offers high cost-effectiveness since no addition equipment from conventional ROADMs is needed. The proposed method, called branching, enhances the routing capabilities over the original grouped routing networks by enabling wavelength paths to be established through different GRE pipes. We also present a novel path/GRE routing and wavelength/GRE index assignment algorithm that supports the new routing function. Numerical experiments using real network topologies verify the improved routing performance and the superior efficiency of the proposed control algorithm over original GRE-based networks.
With the continuous increase in Internet traffic, reconfigurable optical add-drop multiplexers (ROADMs) have been widely adopted in the core and metro core networks. Current ROADMs, however, allow only static operation. To realize future dynamic optical-network services, and to minimize any human intervention in network operation, the optical signal add/drop part should have colorless/directionless/contentionless (C/D/C) capabilities. This is possible with matrix switches or a combination of splitter-switches and optical tunable filters. The scale of the matrix switch increases with the square of the number of supported channels, and hence, the matrix-switch-based architecture is not suitable for creating future large-scale ROADMs. In contrast, the numbers of splitter ports, switches, and tunable filters increase linearly with the number of supported channels, and hence the tunable-filter-based architecture will support all future traffic. So far, we have succeeded in fabricating a compact tunable filter that consists of multi-stage cyclic arrayed-waveguide gratings (AWGs) and switches by using planar-lightwave-circuit (PLC) technologies. However, this multistage configuration suffers from large insertion loss and filter narrowing. Moreover, power-consuming temperature control is necessary since it is difficult to make cyclic AWGs athermal. We propose here novel tunable-filter architecture that sandwiches a single-stage non-cyclic athermal AWG having flatter-topped passbands between small-scale switches. With this configuration, the optical tunable filter attains low insertion loss, large passband bandwidths, low power consumption, compactness, and high cost-effectiveness. A prototype is monolithically fabricated with PLC technologies and its excellent performance is experimentally confirmed utilizing 80-channel 30-GBaud dual-polarization quadrature phase-shift-keying (QPSK) signals.
The emergence of digital coherent optical transmission technologies is being eagerly awaited by the world. This enables us to develop spectrally-efficient transmission systems by means of polarization-division multiplexing and multilevelmodulation formats such as quadrature-phase-shift keying (QPSK) and higher-order quadrature-amplitude modulation (QAM). Thanks to recent rapid advances in the research and development of electronics, demodulation of such signals can be realized effectively by utilizing sophisticated digital signal processors (DSPs). Such digital coherent technologies have successfully been implemented in commercial systems. However, the transmission performance of photonic networks is limited by system impairments that include crosstalk and spectrum narrowing caused at reconfigurable optical add/drop multiplexers (ROADMs) and the nonlinearity of optical fibers. Current digital coherent technologies do not resolve these problems comprehensively necessitating further research. In this paper, we investigate the impacts of the system impairments through intensive computer simulations and show the maximum transmission distances of multilevel-modulation signals. Various transmission schemes for gridless networks including Nyquist wavelengthdivision- multiplexing (WDM) networks, which need digital coherent technologies, are evaluated. We also discuss DSP algorithms that suit photonic networks and permit digital coherent technologies to become more effective in realizing future networks.
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