Patent Application
20080144993
The present invention relates to a method of optimisation of the number and location of regenerative or non-regenerative repeaters in optical communication links, in particular links in Wavelength Division Multiplex (WDM) optical communication systems.
For equipment suppliers and telecommunications operators alike, it is important to be able to optimise the use of active (i.e. those which provide gain) repeaters along the network links to reduce the investments needed and be more competitive in the market.
The standard way of estimating the performance of links of a multi-channel WDM system is to measure or estimate the Bit Error Rate (BER) of the digital channels transmitted on separate optical carriers (wavelengths). Unfortunately, there is no easy way to associate the BER with the characteristics of the link (for example fibre attenuation, chromatic dispersion, polarization mode dispersion, effective area) or the transmitted channels (for example bit-rate, modulation format, pulse-shape, channel spacing etc).
Optimisation of the location of repeaters requires a check of the link feasibility to be repeated for all the possible permutations of optical amplifiers (non regenerative repeaters) and 3R regenerators (regenerative repeaters) in order to find the solution of lowest cost. This is practically impossible and currently network optimisation is based on the skills and experience of designers rather than any automatic or defined procedure. As a result the experience of the designers becomes crucial but difficult to appraise.
A generic WDM network comprises a number of constituent components these include: a WDM Transmit Terminal, a WDM Receive Terminal, a WDM Link, and an OADM Node. Each of these components will now be defined.
A WDM Transmit Terminal is defined as a network node where several digital communication channels (client or tributary channels) modulate different optical carriers (wavelengths), are frequency multiplexed to form an aggregate optical signal (the WDM signal), and optically amplified before coupling the WDM signal into the optical transmission fibre (transmission medium).
A WDM Receive Terminal performs the reverse operation to that of a Transmit Terminal, that is demultiplexing the received WDM signal, sending each optical channel over a different path and separating the communication channel from the associated wavelength carrier.
A WDM Link is everything between the Transmit Terminal and Receive Terminal and includes the optical fibre spans and any equipment necessary for ensuring sufficient signal quality at the Receive Terminal.
An OADM (Optical Add Drop Multiplexer) Node selectively divides the optical channels making up the input WDM signal into three different paths. A first subset of channels (Express channels) pass through the node without undergoing any processing. A second subset of channels (DROP channels) are demultiplexed from the WDM signal and terminated in the node itself, as in a Receive Terminal. Finally, a third subset of channels (ADD channels) are added to the WDM signal as in a Transmit Terminal. Clearly, to avoid wavelength contention, limitations have to must be respected for correct operation of the WDM link. For example, the wavelengths of ADD channels has to be different to those of Express channels and the total number of channels must not exceed the maximum number of channels allowed by the Terminal nodes.
The location of the Terminal and OADM nodes in a network are usually known and depend on the distribution of the tributary channels in accordance with a traffic matrix specified by the network operator (often the operator will also own the network). However, the location of other types of components (such as passive connections e.g. fibre splices, optical amplifiers, 3R regenerators) are not established in advance but are usually agreed between the operator and the equipment supplier. It is important to note that while the location of the Terminal and OADM nodes meets the needs of the operator, the interest of the operator is to minimize the rest of the equipment to reduce capital investment. In contrast the supplier's responsibility is to locate passive connections, optical amplifiers and 3R regenerators to prevent excessive degradation of the signal caused by propagation in the optical fibres and to meet a quality specification whilst keeping costs to a minimum.
To understand how the costs are distributed, it is instructive to outline the function of an optical amplifier and a 3R Regenerator.
The progressive attenuation experienced by the signal propagating in an optical fibre necessitates the use of optical amplifiers for restoring the same optical power level as at the input to the fibre. An optical amplifier is an example of a non-regenerative repeater. In a network having many spans and a cascade of optical amplifiers, the gain of each amplifier should ideally exactly compensates the loss in the preceding fibre span. Unfortunately, the amplifier is not a perfect device. Firstly, an amplifier introduces amplified spontaneous emission (ASE) noise in addition to providing the required optical gain. When there is a plurality N of cascaded optical amplifiers, each of them adds a certain amount of ASE noise implying a gradual degradation of the OSNR (Optical to Signal Noise Ratio) along the fibre link. The amplifier noise is specified by its Noise Figure. Secondly, the gain of an optical amplifier is not flat over the entire operating band (wavelength range) and some wavelength channels are consequently amplified more than others. This problem worsens when several amplifiers are connected in cascade. The amplifier's gain flatness is specified by its Gain Flatness.
Optical amplifiers can only compensate for attenuation and other impairments experienced during transmission such as chromatic dispersion, polarization mode dispersion, and other non linear effects which cause distortion of the channels accumulate cannot be compensated by optical amplifiers alone. Again such problems accumulate along the path and consequently as the distance of the link increases, other components such as one or more 3R Regenerators are required to ensure the required quality of service at the receiver.
For the purposes of this document a 3R Regenerator can be seen as a Receive Terminal followed by a Transmit Terminal in which the channels are demultiplexed, undergo opto-electrical O/E conversion, are electrically processed, undergo electro-optical E/O conversion and are finally multiplexed and re-launched into the optical fibre. Regeneration allows restoration of the correct power, shape and re-timing of the pulses making up the binary signal associated with each WDM channel. A 3R regenerator is a regenerative repeater. In contrast as described above an optical amplifier is a non regenerative repeater.
It is now easy to understand where the costs are concentrated; current optical amplifiers allows amplification of the entire DWDM signal using a single device whilst the 3R Regeneration requires a sequence of complex operations and, in particular, O/E/O conversion has to be performed on each channel and thus requires a number of devices corresponding to the number of channels transported by the WDM signal. The cost of each O/E/O conversion is comparable with that of an optical amplifier, and hence the cost of a 3R Regenerator is comparable to the cost of a single amplifier multiplied by the number of WDM channels. In conclusion, the use of 3R regenerators is to be minimised as much as practicable.
To date, optimisation in the location of active (those which provide gain) repeater elements whether non regenerative (such as optical amplifiers) or regenerative (such as 3R regenerators), along the links in a network to keep a predetermined signal quality, are based on the personal skill and experience of designers rather than on an automatic and rigorous procedure. Such a method does not necessarily ensure the optimal arrangement in terms of costs.
The general purpose of the present invention is to remedy the above mentioned shortcomings by making available a method of optimising, in an automatic and rigorous manner, the number and position of repeaters whether regenerative or non regenerative in a WDM link.
In accordance with the present invention the method of the invention in the first place positions non regenerative repeaters (optical amplifiers) and regenerative repeaters (3R regenerators) in such a manner as to minimize the number of 3R regenerators representing the greatest cost of the system. Then once the regenerators have been positioned the method tries to reduce the number of optical amplifiers while continuing to ensure sufficient quality of the WDM channels.
According to the present invention there is provided, as defined Claim 1, a method for optimisation of the location of regenerative or non regenerative repeaters in a WDM link made up of N spans connected in a succession of N−1 intermediate sites to form link sections separate from sites containing regenerative repeaters and comprising a step for defining the number of regenerative repeaters needed and giving them a first location with said step including the phases of:
Embodiments of the invention are defined in the sub-claims appended hereto.
In order that the innovative principles of the present invention and its advantages compared with the prior art are better understood, there is described below a possible method, by way of example only, applying said principles.
For the purposes of the following method it is assumed that the link has (N+1) sites: that is two terminals and (N−1) intermediate sites. N is known and is the number of locations that can house an optical amplifier, a regenerator, an OADM or a splice (passive connection) for connecting adjacent segments of optical fibre. N is also the number of spans in the link.
The portion of the link that runs between two consecutive regenerators is referred to as a Regeneration Section or just section. More generally a section can be defined between the two terminals of the link (if there is no regenerator present); between a terminal and a regenerator; or between two consecutive regenerators.
The position of the sites, the intermediate lengths of optical fibre and the corresponding spans lost are given parameters. There will be a series of Span Attributes (for example, in an array of N elements) such as:
V
E
V
SM
V
L
V
F
To keep a trace of the type of element that in accordance with the present method is arranged in each site along the link, it is also possible to define an VS array of N−1 Site Attributes. This is an array of (N−1) integers where the ith element can be for example:
1=Splice (passive connector)
In accordance with the present method, some metrics are defined for multispan WDM links while comparing them with target figures in a look-up table. Regenerators and amplifiers are added step by step in accordance with a well-defined procedure until the metrics become equal or greater than the target metrics. In accordance with another aspect of the present invention, a method for automatically finding the solution of optimal positioning of the network elements is proposed using a limited set of parameters. Advantageously, the use of the Optical Signal to Noise Ratio (OSNR) is proposed. All the other transmission defects are considered implicitly defining a target function OSNR of the number of spans and the type of fibre (when the link distance increases, the transmission penalties increase as a result and higher OSNRs are necessary to absorb them). This function can change depending on the implementation of the system and depends on the design rules of the user. A look-up table containing the target OSNRs like the following example is defined:
Let us call said table of target OSNRs [dB], VOSNRT. Each column of the matrix refers to a fibre type among those used most commonly in optical networks (SMF, LEAF™, TrueWave™). Each row of the matrix refers to a number of spans; in the first row we find the target OSNRs for links with one span, in the second the targets OSNRs for links with two spans and so forth. A realistic maximum number of rows is approximately 40 corresponding to 40 fibre spans.
The method in accordance with the present invention works advantageously in three steps, that is:
a) if appropriate, join short adjacent spans by means of passive connectors/splices;
b) find the minimum number (NR) of regenerators that make the link feasible; and
c) find the optimal positions for these regenerators.
The first step a) can be optional though it is preferable to perform it, if for no other reason than, to reduce the number of sites on which it is then necessary to carry out the next two steps c) and d).
Again, in accordance with the present invention, a fourth step d) can be advantageously appended, that is:
d) reduce the number of amplifiers used.
Advantageous implementations of the individual steps a) to d) of the method realized in accordance with the various aspects of the present invention are now described.
In the first step a) (that is join short adjacent spans by splices or passive connectors if feasible) two or more short spans are joined by means of a splice before allocating/positioning the regenerators.
The following parameters are defined:
V
E
Two consecutive spans will have:
V
E[i]
V
E[i + 1]
If these two spans (i and i+1) are joined by a splice with loss LS, the total loss will be:
V
E[i]+VE[i+1]+LS.
There are three possible cases of such total loss.
V
E
[i]+V
E
[i+1]+LS<GMIN
That is, if two (or more) adjacent spans have a total EOLA (including splice loss) less than or equal to the minimum gain of the amplifier GMIN, it is possible and appropriate to connect these spans before moving on to the next step of the method.
G
MIN
<=V
E
[i]+V
E
[i+1]+LS<=GMAX
If two or more adjacent spans have a total EOLA, including slice losses, within the Amplifier Gain Range [GMIN, GMAX], it is necessary to evaluate case by case whether it is appropriate to join these spans by a splice. At this point it is instructive to summarize how OSNR is calculated:
where Pchannel and Pase are respectively the channel and ASE noise powers in linear units. The denominator is a function of G:
P
ase(G)=k·nf(G)·10G/10
where G is the optical amplifier gain in [dB], nf is the optical amplifier noise figure in linear units, k is a constant term which depends on Planck's constant, work frequency and the optical bandwidth.
In general, G is equal to EOLA so that the amplifier compensates for the whole span loss. If EOLA is less than GMIN, the span is loaded with an attenuator (pad) in order to reach the GMIN figure. In other words, the spans will be joined if:
G=Max(GMIN,EOLA).
In accordance with one aspect of the present invention, to evaluate the suitability of joining the two spans, the solution is selected such as to minimize the Pase. In other words, the spans will be joined if:
Pase Join<Pase Not Join
which is equivalent to:
P
ase(Max(GMIN,VE[i]+VE[i+1]+LS))<Pase(Max(GMIN,VE[i]))+Pase(Max(GMIN,VE[i+1]))
but according to the starting hypothesis of case 2:
G
MAX
>=V
E
[i]+V
E
[i+1]+LS>GMIN
hence:
P
ase(VE[i]+VE[i+1]+LS)<Pase(Max(GMIN,VE[i]))+Pase(Max(GMIN,VE[i+1]))
If this condition is verified, the two adjacent spans can be joined. If it is not verified, a passive joint is not possible.
G
MAX
<V
E
[i]+V
E
[i+1]+LS
If two (or more) adjacent spans have a total EOLA including the splice losses greater than the maximum amplification gain, the spans cannot be joined using a passive connection.
After performing the first step a) and joining all the spliceable spans, one can then go on to the second step b) (finding the minimum number NR of regenerators that make the link feasible). This second step applies a recursive procedure that considers each site starting from the Transmit site up to the Receive site. An amplifier is placed in each available site (except those which have been joined by passive connection/splice in step a) of the link. Advantageously, two pointers P1 and P2 are used to select the sites in the link during the recursive procedure. P1 points to the site at the beginning of the section under study and would initially be the Transmit site and subsequently the site of the regenerator at the beginning of the link currently under study. P2 is also initially set to correspond to P1 and is then incremented (conceptually this can be envisaged as moving from the site indicated by P1 at the start of the link along the link to the next site/s) until it reaches a site at which a regenerator is to be allocated and this ends the section under study. As is described below P1 is set to correspond to the value of P2 and the site for the regenerator determined in a like manner until all regenerators are allocated.
To keep track of the position of the regenerators, it is advantageous to define an array VR whose size is (N+1), i.e. an element (logical) for each site including the terminals. The first and last elements are set to “True” while the other elements are set to “True” if the relevant site contains a regenerator but otherwise they are set to “False”.
For application of the second step b), the following link attributes are defined.
V
OSNR
V
M
In the second step b) the method of the present invention works in accordance with the following nine sub-steps.
V
M[1]=VOSNR[1]−VOSNRT[1,fibre type]−VOADM
where
V
M[1]
V
OSNR[1]
V
OSNRT[1,
V
M[1]=VOSNR[1]−VOSNRT[2,fibre type]−VOADM.
V
M[1]=VOSNR[1]−VOSNRT[i,fibre type]−VOADM
This iterative procedure stops when P2 reaches the final Terminal and thereby determines the number NR of regenerators needed. Thus ends the second step b) of the method.
However, the selected positions for regenerators (memorized in the VR array) are not optimal. Indeed, section 1 to section NR are at the allowed limit of the OSNR. On the contrary, the last section (NR+1) is as a rule above this limit by a considerable amount. This is clear observing the last element of the VM metric vector which is typically the largest. For example, with reference to a link with two sections, it might be:
V
M=[0.2 0.4 3.4]
Even though the link is feasible, it is not the best location of the regenerators because the last section has a very large OSNR margin compared to the first two. It would be better to distribute this margin more uniformly while keeping the same minimum number of regenerators.
The third step c) of the method finds the optimal position of the regenerators. In accordance with one aspect of the present invention, said optimal position is sought with an iterative procedure based on minimization of the root mean square VRMS of the elements of the VM metric vector, namely:
In other words, starting with the allocation of regenerators determined in step b) of the method (i.e. finding the minimum number of regenerators), the positions of the regenerators will be adjusted to minimize the VRMS of the metric vector by distributing the available margin among all the sections.
To obtain this, step c) of the method will include the following sub-steps:
VRMS
Two cases are possible:
The iterative procedure (VRMS=VRMS
At this point, if it is also further desired to optimise the number of amplifiers (which, as stated, have a much lower cost than the regenerators) the next step d) of the method can be applied to optimise the number of amplifiers in the sections.
This last step of the method seeks to reduce the number of optical amplifiers holding the positions of the regenerators. The method acts independently on each section.
In accordance with the present invention, step d) includes advantageously the sub-steps of:
V
M[1]=VOSNR[1]−VOSNRT[2,fibre type]−NOADM[1]·VOADM
Having applied steps 17 to 20 to all the sections, the link is completely optimised.
It is now clear that the predetermined purposes have been achieved by making available a method of optimisation of number and the positions of the various regenerative or non-regenerative elements at the sites along the link.
Naturally the above description of an embodiment applying the innovative principles of the present invention is given by way of non-limiting example of said principles within the scope of the exclusive right claimed here. For example, the method can be implemented manually or, more advantageously, by means of an appropriate computer program readily imaginable to those skilled in the art.
| Number | Date | Country | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| MI2004A 001481 | Jul 2004 | IT | national |
| Filing Document | Filing Date | Country | Kind | 371c Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| PCT/EP05/53530 | 7/20/2005 | WO | 00 | 12/13/2007 |
