Claims
- 1. A system for verifying path integrity through a transparent optical-electrical-optical (OEO) switch in a digital communications system comprising:
an optical receiver at an ingress port of the switch to receive an optical data signal and to convert the optical data signal to an electrical data signal; a splitter to divide said electrical data signal into parallel paths for delivery to separate switch fabrics; data recovery units to receive data signals from said separate switch fabrics and to evaluate signal quality of respective paths; a processor to select one of said signals of said signals from said separate switch fabrics based on the evaluation; and a transmitter at an egress port to convert said one signal to an optical signal and to transmit said optical signal downstream.
- 2. The system as defined in claim 1 wherein said data recovery units are clock data recovery (CDR) devices.
- 3. The system as defined in claim 2 wherein said CDR devices evaluate the bit error rate (BER) of said signals from said separate switch fabrics.
- 4. The system as defined in claim 2 wherein said CDR devices evaluate clock status of said signal from said separate switch fabrics.
- 5. The system as defined in claim 1 wherein said electrical signal is divided into two parallel paths and supplied to two separate switch fabrics.
- 6. The system as defined in claim 1 wherein said processor operates in conjunction with a selector to provide the signal having the highest quality to said transmitter.
- 7. A method of verifying integrity of a data signal through a transparent optical-electrical-optical switch in a digital communications system, the method comprising;
receiving an optical data signal at an ingress port of the switch; converting the optical data signal to an electrical data signal; splitting the electrical signal into parallel paths and forwarding each through separate switch fabrics; evaluating signal quality of each signal from said separate switch fabrics; selecting the signal having the highest quality; converting the signal having the highest quality to an optical signal; and transmitting said optical signal downstream.
Parent Case Info
[0001] This invention claims the benefits of U.S. Provisional Application No. 60/272,463 filed Mar. 2, 2001.
Provisional Applications (1)
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Number |
Date |
Country |
|
60272463 |
Mar 2001 |
US |