Claims
- 1. An optical node for a network, capable of selectively passing incoming signals comprising a plurality of wavelength channels therethrough in the absence of converting from O-E-O, said optical node further being capable of selectively adding external channels or dropping individual channels within the incoming signals from the node, the optical node comprising:
a first wavelength selective element (WSE) having at least n input ports and m output ports, wherein n and m are greater or equal to 2, said WSE for selectively routing any of at least p channels received on one of the n input ports to any of m output ports, at least one of the n input ports Padd—local for receiving local add channels from within the node, and at least one of the m output ports pdrop-local for routing one or more received channels from any one of the n input ports to the at least one input port padd—local after “massaging” said at least one or more received channels; and, a processing element for massaging at least a channel received from the output port pdrop-local and for providing said at least channel to the input port padd—local, wherein massaging includes at least one of attenuating, amplifying, reshaping and converting said channel from an optical to electrical to optical channel.
- 2. An optical node for a network as defined in claim 1, further comprising wavelength multiplexing means for combining one or more channels received from the processing element and for providing said one or more channels to the input port ports padd—local.
- 3. An optical node for a network as defined in claim 2, further comprising wavelength demultiplexing means for separating one or more multiplexed channels received from the first WSE into one or more separate channels for provision on separate waveguides to be provided to the processing element.
- 4. An optical node for a network as defined in claim 1 wherein the first WSE is comprised of a plurality of n splitters having output ports and m combiners having input ports and means disposed between the n splitters and m combiners coupled to receive signals in the form of multiplexed channels from the n splitter output ports and to controllably provide selected channels to any of the m combiners input ports.
- 5. An optical node for a network as defined in claim 3, wherein the first WSE includes splitters, combiners and wavelength blockers there between, for allowing selected channels to pass from any splitter to any combiner, and to block selected channels from passing between selected paths between any splitter and any combiner.
- 6. An optical node as defined in claim 1, wherein any local added channel that has passed through the processing element and subsequently provided to input port Padd—local can be routed to any of the m output ports.
- 7. An optical node as defined in claim 1, wherein n and m are both greater or equal to 4 and wherein at least two of the m output ports are pass through ports such that traffic provided to the at least two m ports from any of the n input ports is routed out of the first WSE without being directed through the processing element.
- 8. An optical node as defined in claim 3 further comprising a second wavelength selective element (WSE) having at least n input ports and m output ports, wherein n and m are greater or equal to 2, said second WSE for selectively routing any of at least p channels received on one of the n input ports to any of the m output ports at least one of the n input ports being optically coupled to receive channels from the wavelength demultiplexing means, at least on of the m output ports being optically coupled to the wavelength multiplexing means for providing selected channels thereto.
- 9. An optical node as defined in claim 3, wherein the first WSE is comprised of an ingress multi-wavelength switch having n input ports and m×n output ports optically coupled with a combiner having n×m input ports and m output ports.
- 10. An optical node as defined in claim 3, wherein the first WSE is comprised of an ingress optical splitter having n input ports and n×m output ports optically coupled with a multi-wavelength switch having n×m input ports and m output ports.
- 11. An optical node as defined in claim 3, wherein the first WSE is comprised of ingress and egress back to back multi-wavelength switches (MWSs), the ingress MWS having n input ports and the egress MWS having m output ports, the ingress and egress MWSs both having n×m optical connections therebetween.
- 12. An optical node as defined in claim 9 wherein the multiplexing means and demultiplexing means are colourless so as that the multiplexing means can route any selected channel of a group of channels routed therein to any output port on the multiplexing means, and so that the demultiplexing means can combine any channel present on any of its input ports to a single output port.
- 13. An optical node as defined in claim 3 wherein n=m and wherein n>3.
- 14. An optical node as defined in claim 1, wherein at least two input ports are optically coupled to colourless local add multiplexers, and wherein at least two output ports are optically coupled to two colorless local drop demultiplexers and wherein one of the colorless demultiplexers and one of the colourless multiplexers are optically coupled through the processing element.
- 15. An optical node as defined in claim 3, wherein the processing element includes and O-E-O converter.
- 16. An optical node as defined in claim 14, wherein the processing element includes a regenerator having a tunable laser.
- 17. An optical node as defined in claim 3 wherein the processing means includes means to convert a wavelength of an incoming signal to another wavelength.
- 18. An optical node for connection to a network for receiving incoming signals and for sending outgoing signals having a plurality of wavelength channels, said node comprising:
a least one reconfigurable wavelength selective element having n+k input ports and m+l output ports for switching selectively any wavelength channel from any input port to any output port wherein; at least some of the n input ports are optically coupled to receive from the network optical signals having a plurality of wavelength channels and; at least some of the m output ports are optically coupled to send to the network optical signals having a plurality of wavelength channels and; at least the kth input port is optically coupled to a local add multiplexer for receiving wavelength channels from with in the node and combining them into a single optical signals having a plurality of wavelength channels; at least the lth output port is optically coupled to a local drop demultiplexer for receiving an optical signal having a plurality of wavelength channels that have not passed through from one of n input ports to one of the n output ports and for demultiplexing said optical signal into individual wavelength channels; and means disposed between and optically coupled with the local drop demultiplexer and the local add multiplexer for processing at least one channel demultiplexed by the local drop demultiplexer and providing a least a channel corresponding to said at least one channel to the local add multiplexer.
- 19. An optical node as defined in claim 18, wherein the means for processing includes an optical-electrical-optical conversion unit for providing 3-R conversion.
- 20. An optical node as defined in claim 4 wherein at least one of the m combiners have at least two output ports, each coupled to a different multi-wavelength switch and wherein at least one of the m splitters have at least two input ports each coupled to a different multi-wavelength switch for providing local drop and local add functionality, respectively.
- 21. An optical node as defined in claim 8, wherein the means for processing includes an optical-to-electrical-to-optical (OEO) conversion circuit for providing any selected channel within the node with any of regeneration, retiming, or reshaping (3-R).
CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS
[0001] The present invention claims priority from U.S. patent application Ser. Nos. 60/480,374 filed Jun. 20, 2003 and 60/491,404 filed Jul. 31, 2003, which are incorporated herein by reference.
Provisional Applications (2)
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Number |
Date |
Country |
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60480374 |
Jun 2003 |
US |
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60491404 |
Jul 2003 |
US |