Nortel Networks Corporation

Juniper Networks, Inc.

Fujitsu Corporation

Corning Incorporated

Northern Telecom Limited

Rockstar Consortium US LP

Oclaro Technology Limited

Robert William Keys

Kevan Peter Jones

John B Mills

Denis Daniel Leclair

Sean D L McVeigh

Jean V E Ouellet

Douglas J Greenwood

Mark R Hinds

Nigel Edward Jolley

Alan Glen Solheim

Richard A Habel

Gregory Dean May

Kevan Jones

Stephane St-Laurent

Mark E Bray

Osama S Aboul-Magd

Maurice M O'Sullivan

Michael John Yadlowsky

Ornan A Gerstel

Kevin Wallace Bennett

Rajiv R Ramaswami

Kim Byron Roberts

Mark A Newhouse

Simon P Parry

Alan Robinson

Jonathan Paul King

Loren Berg

Robert R Ward

Frederic J Simard

Paul Anthony Jakobson

Barrie Flintham

Mike Scobey

Humair Raza

Rad Sommer

Vasant Sahay

Babu O Narayanan

Fiona Davis

David Park

Loren Scott Berg

James Regan

Martin P Poettcker

Robert A Baker

Roger M Gibb

Kevan P Jones

Toby J Reid

Alan A Solheim

Joseph Mun

Jeffrey Alan Weslowski

Franz Li Hsien Mok

Mathieu Dutrisac

Fiona Davies

Ross T Elliott

According to various aspects of the present disclosure, an apparatus is provided. In an aspect, the apparatus includes an optical transceiver having a first port, a second port and an optical switch coupled to the first port and the second port. The optical switch is switchable between a unidirectional port operation mode and a bidirectional port operation mode. When the optical switch is in the unidirectional port operation mode, the first port is configured to send a first optical signal, and the second port configured to receive a second optical signal. When the optical switch is in the bidirectional port operation mode, the first port configured to send the first optical signal and receive the second optical signal, and the second port configured to receive a third optical signal and not send the first signal. Furthermore, a second bidirectional port operation mode is supported with the second port configured to send the first optical signal and receive the second optical signal, and the first port configured to receive a third optical signal and not send the first signal.

Systems, methods, and apparatus for optical transceiver with multiple switch state configurations

In some embodiments, a system includes a super-channel multiplexer (SCM) and an optical cross connect (OXC) switch. The SCM is configured to multiplex a set of optical signals into a super-channel optical signal with a wavelength band. The OXC switch is configured to be operatively coupled to the SCM and a reconfigurable optical add-drop multiplexer (ROADM) degree. The OXC switch is configured to be located between the SCM and the ROADM degree and the OXC switch, the SCM, and the ROADM degree are configured to be included in a colorless, directionless, and contentionless (CDC) optical network. The OXC switch is configured to switch, based on the wavelength band, the super-channel optical signal to an output port from a set of output ports of the OXC switch. The OXC switch is configured to transmit the super-channel optical signal from the output port to the ROADM degree.

Methods and apparatus for a colorless directionless and super-channel contentionless (CDSC) optical network architecture

Methods and apparatus for a colorless directionless and super-channel contentionless (CDsC) optical network architecture

Automatic discovery and verification of optical communication links as well as isolation of link failures in an optical communication system.

Link discovery, verification, and failure isolation in an optical communication system

A system and method for selecting ghost channels in an optical communication system, including components configured to examine an optical communication channel within a node of the optical communication system, examine a neighbor channel of the optical communication channel, determine whether using the neighbor channel as a ghost channel will create an undesirable level of risk of feedback within the optical communication system, if using the neighbor channel as a ghost channel will not create an undesirable level of risk of feedback, determine whether the neighbor channel is currently used as a ghost channel, and if the neighbor channel is not currently used as a ghost channel, select the neighbor channel as a ghost channel.

System and method for selection of ghost channels for mitigating polarization hole burning

A system and method for managing the selection of ghost channels in an optical communication system, including components configured to collect one or more first data values indicating the validity of an optical communication channel within a first degree of a node in the optical communication system, collect one or more second data values indicating the optical power level of the optical communication channel, transmit the first and second data values to a second degree of the node, receive the first and second data values at the first degree, and aggregate the first and second data values for the first degree and the second degree at the first degree.

System and method for managing the selection of ghost channels for mitigating polarization hole burning

A system for mitigating the effects of polarization hole burning in an optical communication system. The system includes an optical input signal comprising one or more traffic channels, a measurement module configured to check for the existence of ghost channels around the traffic channels, and a ghost channel generation module configured to generate a ghost channel around the traffic channels from amplified spontaneous emission noise of the optical input signal.

System and method for mitigating polarization hole burning

A system and method for optimizing the selection of ghost channels to mitigate the effects of polarization hole burning in a node of an optical communication system including identifying an optical communication channel in the node for use as a ghost channel, identifying a first set of degrees carrying the optical communication channel within the node, identifying a second set of degrees within the first set of degrees, the second set containing the degrees with the optical communication channel being a valid channel, identifying a third set of degrees within the first set of degrees, the third set containing degrees with the optical communication channel being sufficiently powerful, and selecting a first degree to source the ghost channel from the first set of degrees based at least on the second set of degrees and the third set of degrees.

System and method for optimizing the selection of ghost channels in mitigating polarization hole burning

An optical analyzer () for performing spectral analysis on an optical beam () includes an optical filter (), a mover (), an optical launcher (), and an optical receiver (). The optical filter () includes a filter area () that is a narrow band pass type filter having multiple alternative center bandwidths that are distributed along the filter area (). The mover () moves the optical filter (). The first optical launcher () directs the optical beam () at the filter area () so that the optical beam () is near normal incidence to the filter area (). The optical analyzer () can be used to simultaneously monitor multiple optical signals. Additionally, the optical analyzer () can include a beam redirector () that causes the optical beam () to make two passes through the optical filter ().

Optical channel analyzer with variable filter

A modular bidirectional optical amplification system includes a multiwavelength dual amplifier building block, a multiwavelength unidirectional booster amplifier BB, a unidirectional and a bidirectional Optical Service Channel (OSC) BB, an Intelligent Optical Terminal Accessway (IOTA) module, and an interleaved filter BB. The dual amplifier BB is available in a C-band version, an E-band version and a hybrid version, and provides unidirectional or bidirectional multichannel amplification. The booster amplifier is available in a C-band version, an E-band version and in a booster plus variant; one for the C-band and one for E-band. The unidirectional and bidirectional OSC BBs provide a means for OAM&P functionality to the optical network. The IOTA BB provides multiplexing and demultiplexing, and the filter BB provides separation of the signal into grid-1 and grid-2 channels.

Highly scalable modular optical amplifier based subsystem

To support interleaving of optical channels and to provide sufficient isolation between such interleaved channels, a circulator ( ) receives, on an optical fiber ( ), a broadband signal containing a plurality of adjacent channels. The circulator selectively routes the broadband signal through a filter ( ) to isolate, on an individual basis, at least one desired channel. A filtered signal, corresponding to the at least one desired channel, is then output from the filter ( ) and reflected back into the filter by a mirror ( ) such that the at least one desired channel is subjected to a second filtering process that further improves isolation of the at least one desired channel. Following this second filtering process, the at least one desired channel is applied to the circulator ( ) for re-inserting into the optical fiber ( ), as illustrated in FIG. To mitigate the effects of four-wave mixing in each bidirectional optical fiber, a channel assignment plan ensures that pairs of adjacent channels are assigned on a mutually exclusive basis to at least one of an up-link and a down-link direction.

Circuit and channel assignment plan for optical transmissions

An inexpensive broadband source such as an ASE source, used for erbium amplifier measurements, compares well with the use of a prior art ITU grid. Deltas are less than 0.4 and 0.3 dB for gain and noise figure respectively. The spectral loading used to test erbium amplifiers needs to closely resemble conditions seen in the field. Use of an ITU grid is a good way of achieving this, however it is a costly solution and may restrict the spectral resolution. Use of a high power amplified spontaneous emission source gives a cost-effective alternative, which compares well with ITU grid measurements. In addition the spectral resolution of the measurement is then only limited by the spectral resolution of the optical spectrum analyzer.

Method and apparatus for the measurement of erbium optical amplifiers

In a WDM optical transmission system employing optical amplifiers in its transmission path, a supervisory signal channel, used for monitoring and controlling the operation of the amplifiers and spectrally separated from the data transmission, may be multiplexed with the data. A construction of amplifier is disclosed which is capable of being upgraded with an upgrade of the transmission system to include additional data handling capacity, for instance data transmission in an additional waveband and/or in the opposite direction, without interruption of the pre-upgrade data transmission path through the amplifiers. This is accomplished by the use of channel dropping and insertion filters disposed so that the amplifying data transmission path extends via the drop/insertion channel of those filters.

Optical amplifiers

Growing community of inventors

Stittsville, Canada

Robert William Keys