The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Nov. 05, 2002
Filed:
Dec. 23, 1999
Kouki Sato, Ichihara, JP;
The Furukawa Electric Co., Ltd., Tokyo, JP;
Abstract
An approach for performing fault recovery in an optical communications network is disclosed. An optical switch is connected to working optical fibers and protection optical fibers, which carry WDM (wave division multiplexing) optical signals. The optical switches possess functionality to switch over the optical signals among the working optical fibers and the protection optical fibers. The optical switch includes dual unit optical switches that have a common driving mechanism. The common driving mechanism is configured to perform simultaneously switching operation of the unit optical switches to alter a switching state of the optical switch. Monitoring devices are distributed throughout the node to monitor the transmitted optical signals over the optical fibers, and to output monitoring signals that indicate one or more faults in these optical fibers. In response to the monitoring signals, a control device outputs control signals to the optical switches to effect an optical protection scheme.