Calient Technologies, Inc.

Sushma Sagaram

Jitender Miglani

Vijayan Thattai

Mike Deacon

Shifu Yuan

Mchael Deacon

An optical circuit switch and method. A first mirror element rotates about orthogonal axes in response to first and second voltages applied respectively to first and second electrodes. A second mirror element rotates about orthogonal axes in response to third and fourth voltages applied respectively to the third and fourth electrodes. A controller may apply first through fourth voltages respectively to the first through fourth electrodes to make a connection between first and second ports. When an initial insertion loss of the connection does not exceed a predetermined threshold, the controller may conduct independent single-dimension searches to determine values for the first through fourth voltages that minimize the insertion loss. When the initial insertion loss exceeds the predetermined threshold, the controller may conduct a four-dimensional search to determine values for the first through fourth voltages that reduce the insertion loss to not exceed the predetermined threshold.

Making connections through an optical circuit switch

Methods of operating an optical circuit switch and optical circuit switches are disclosed. To make a connection between a first port and a second port, baseline voltages may be determined, baseline voltages being voltages that, if respectively applied to one or more electrode coupled to a first mirror element uniquely associated with the first port and one or more electrode coupled to a second mirror element uniquely associated with the second port, cause the first and second mirror elements to rotate to make the connection in the absence of accumulated mirror element drift. Accumulated drift data associated with one or both of the first mirror element and the second mirror element may be retrieved from a memory. One or more of the baseline voltages may be modified based on the accumulated drift data to provide corrected voltages, and the corrected voltages may be applied to the electrodes.

Mirror drift compensation in an optical circuit switch

Methods of operating an optical circuit switch and optical circuit switches are disclosed. An optical circuit switch may receive a first make command to make a first optical connection between a first port and a second port, the first port uniquely associated with a rotatable mirror element, determine a first baseline voltage to be applied to an electrode coupled to the mirror element to cause the mirror element to rotate about an axis to make the first optical connection, and apply the first baseline voltage to the electrode. The optical circuit switch may periodically adjust the voltage applied to the electrode to minimize an insertion loss of the first optical connection, and periodically store accumulated angular drift data in a memory, the accumulated angular drift data derived from a difference between the adjusted voltage applied to the first electrode and the first baseline voltage.

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Camarillo, CA, United States of America

Sushma Sagaram