1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to fiber optic transmitters and receivers and related optical networking systems and methods of transmitting and receiving data along optical networking systems.
2. Background of the Prior Art and Related Information
Fiber optic data distribution networks are becoming increasingly important for the provision of high bandwidth data links to commercial and residential locations. Such systems employ optical data transmitters and receivers (or “transceivers” when a single unit contain both a transmitter and a receiver) that provide the interface between the electronic circuitry and the fiber optic link. The transceivers are deployed throughout the fiber optic distribution network, at each end of a fiber optic strand. An important feature of a fiber optic network is the ability to keep the operations of such network uninterrupted, and in cases of failure to minimize the repair time. As fiber distribution networks become widely deployed the instances of inadvertent fiber break increases. For example, such break can be due to construction of a trench somewhere on the fiber route resulting in unintentional cut of the fiber trunk. Once such cut, or fiber break, occurs the service is disrupted and the network operator is faced with the task to quickly and efficiently isolate the problem and physically locate the area where the fiber is cut. Another type of problem can occur for fiber systems occurs where the connections between the transceivers and the optical network is done via “patch panel” that contains an array of fiber-optic receptacle and plugs that enable connections to be configured by an operator. At times adding or reconfiguring another link may result in an operator error and the wrong fiber is unplugged from the panel. Service is interrupted and it is not always clear at what end of the link such a mistake took place.
Determining connection problems where fiber disruption is located may involve considerable time and inconvenience to the operator of the network. Current practice deploys skilled technicians and/or engineers that physically go to the fiber termination point and using expensive test equipment localizing the problematic spot. The equipment usually deployed is Optical Time domain Reflectometer (OTDR) that characterizes all the reflections along an optical path, and locate them based on timing/propagation measurements. Since fiber break is associated with an increase in the optical power reflected at the break point due to diffraction at the glass to air interface, such an OTDR is used to find the distance to the failure point. Only than a repair crew can be dispatched to the actual area of failure. Therefore, it will be appreciated that these difficulties related to faults localization in an optical network can waste considerable time and generate associated expenses related to maintenance and system downtime.
The common fiber-optic link utilizes two fibers such that each transceiver couples its transmitter optical output to one fiber and receives the optical signal via another fiber. Single fiber transceivers couple both streams of traffic (incoming and outgoing) over a single fiber strand. Accordingly, it will be appreciated that a need presently exists for a single fiber optical transceiver which can address the above noted problems. It will further be appreciated that a need presently exists for such an optical transceiver which can provide such capability without significant added cost or complexity.
The present invention provides a single fiber optical transceiver adapted for use in an optical fiber transmission system which is capable of detecting and localizing open fiber connector connection and incidents of high optical return loss (ORL) usually associated with fiber break. The present invention further provides an optical transceiver which can provide such capability without added cost or complexity.
In a first aspect the present invention provides an optical transceiver coupled to single optical fiber. The transceiver, comprising a transmitter comprising a laser diode and a laser driver providing a drive signal to the laser diode, a receiver comprising a photodiode and signal recovery circuitry, and a microcontroller coupled to the transmitter and receiver and providing a pulsed power control signal to the laser driver during a special test mode operation to transmit an impulse of optical power into the fiber and monitoring received signals on the same fiber to detect incidents of high optical reflectance.
In a preferred embodiment, the laser driver has modulation and bias power control inputs and the microcontroller controls the bias control input during said test mode. For example, the microcontroller may set the bias power control and the modulation control to the maximum the laser driver can provide hence generating the highest possible optical power from the laser driver. The receiver preferably includes a transimpedance amplifier coupled to the photodiode and the microcontroller monitors the output of the transimpedance amplifier using a comparator during the test mode. The comparator detects an incoming light impulse and provides a first output when the transimpedance amplifier output is above a threshold value and a second output when it is below the threshold value. Preferably, the transmitted impulse has a fast rise-time so the received test signal also has a sharp rise time. The microcontroller monitors the time difference between the transmitted impulse and the received impulse. Knowledge of the propagation time of light in an optical fiber (e.g. 5 nSec per meter) can be used to localize the distance to the reflection point.
In a further aspect the present invention provides a fiber optic communication network, comprising an optical fiber and a transceiver coupled to the single optical fiber. The transceiver comprises a transmitter including a laser diode coupled to a single fiber and a laser driver providing a drive signal to the laser diode, and an additional transistor that can increase the impulse current to the laser diode, a receiver including a photodiode coupled to a single fiber and signal recovery circuitry, and a microcontroller coupled to the transmitter and receiver and providing a modulated and bias power control signals to the laser driver and the additional transistor during an impulse transmit pulse and monitoring received signals to detect returned impulse. Preferably the additional transistor is coupled to the bias supply line to the laser, thus not interfering with the required high frequency response of the modulation signal during normal data transport.
In a preferred embodiment, the impulse test mode is combined with a smart transceiver with a state machine (see U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/304,393 the disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety). When the state machine detects an abnormal operation condition it initiates the sending of the impulse power and monitoring the time the reflected impulse is received, as described above.
In another preferred embodiment, the threshold of the receiver comparator is adjusted by the microcontroller to enable sensitivity control of the reflected impulse detection.
In another preferred embodiment, the timing information of the difference between the sent impulse time and the received impulse time is stored in data fields in memory page of the microcontroller, accessible to the system via electrical interface.
In another preferred embodiment, the microcontroller responds to received impulse only within a predetermined time window. By changing the time window allowing for reflectance monitoring, multiple reflection points can be identified.
Further features and advantages will be appreciated from a review of the following detailed description of the invention.
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In various applications data transmission along the optical fibers may be in burst mode or both burst and continuous modes at different times. This configuration may for example be employed in a passive optical network (PON) where transceiver 10 corresponds to an optical line terminator (OLT) whereas transceiver 20 corresponds to an optical networking unit (ONU). In this type of fiber optic data distribution network transceiver 10 may be coupled to multiple optical networking units and this is schematically illustrated by fibers 28-30 in
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Laser diode 110 is coupled to laser driver 114 which drives the laser diode in response to the data input provided along lines 16 to provide the modulated light output from laser diode 110. In particular, the laser driver provides a modulation drive current, corresponding to high data input values (or logic 1), and a bias drive current, corresponding to low data input values (or logic 0). During normal operation the bias drive current will not correspond to zero laser output optical power. Various modulation schemes may be employed to encode the data, for example, NRZ encoding may be employed as well as other schemes well known in the art. In addition to receiving the data provided along lines 16 the laser driver 114 may receive a transmitter disable input along line 115 as illustrated in
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The digital signals output from digital signal recovery circuit 140 are provided to the back end of the receiver 132 which removes signal jitter, for example using a latch and clock signal to remove timing uncertainties, and which may also derive the clock signal from the digital signal if a clock signal is desired. In the latter case the receiver back end 132 comprises a clock and data recovery circuit which generates a clock signal from the transitions in the digital signal provided from digital signal recovery circuit 140, for example, using a phase locked loop (PLL), and provides in phase clock and data signals at the output of transceiver along lines 26 and 28, respectively. An example of a commercially available clock and data recovery circuit is the AD807 CDR from Analog Devices. Also, the receiver back end 132 may decode the data from the digital high and low values if the data is encoded. For example, if the digital signal input to the clock and data recovery circuit is in NRZ format, the clock and data recovery circuit will derive both the clock and data signals from the transitions in the digital waveform. Other data encoding schemes are well known in the art will involve corresponding data and clock recovery schemes. In the case of synchronous systems, such as PON optical networks, the clock may be available locally and the back end 132 aligns the phase of the incoming signal to the local clock, such that signals arriving from different transmitters and having differing phases are all aligned to the same clock. In this case the clock signals are inputs to the receiver back end from the local clock provided along line 34. A suitable clock and data phase aligner for such a synchronous application is disclosed in co-pending U.S. patent application entitled “Fiber Optic Transceiver Employing Clock and Data Phase Aligner”, to Meir Bartur and Jim Stephenson, Ser. No. 09/907,057 filed Jul. 17, 2001, the disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference.
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More specifically, the microcontroller 118 sets the bias current and modulation current by setting the digital values of the digital to analog converters (DACs) 76. The analog output values set the bias and modulation set point voltages for the laser driver 114. The power may be factory set or user settable through the IIC bus. The DACS may be implemented as pulse width modulators (PWM). During data transport operation, for example, the microcontroller will automatically adjust the bias and modulation set point voltages to adjust for variations in laser power with changes in temperature. During the manufacture of the transceiver, the transmitter is characterized by measuring the laser output power over temperature and storing this information in the microcontroller memory 75. The microcontroller uses this information to determine the set points for any particular temperature.
U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/304,393 describes how the microcontroller 118 can transmit pulse width modulated data by changing the bias set point between 0 power and maximum bias power by controlling the digital to analog converter. The far end receiver then receives this data where it is fed to the microcontroller through the comparator 158. The comparator output high thus represents a test signal detect (TSD) which can be modulated to transfer test data and is used only internally. For pulse width modulated test data the timer 178 within the microcontroller measures the pulse width of the TSD signal and determines if the data is a one or a zero. During normal operation the output of the comparator is always at a valid logic level as the input optical power provided by the remote transmitter results in a signal that is above the set point of the comparator even for the weakest input signal.
Optical networks sometimes suffer from imperfect connections that are characterized by increased loss in the connection and reflecting some portion of the light back to the transmitter. An open connector (glass to air interface) results in ˜14.5 dB ORL (Optical Return Loss—the measure of the amount of power reflected back in dB). Operating a single fiber single wavelength link may have instances during testing or installation when the link is open—resulting in an open connector. Fiber break can result in an incidence of high ORL e.g. 15-20 dB. The ability to detect such a reflection and pin-point the location can be very useful in keeping fiber networks operational.
One particular advantage of the test mode processing described herein pertains to reflection location localization. Reflections are a very significant problem for single fiber single wavelength links where the transmitted wavelength and the received wavelength are traveling on the same fiber, and the receiver is sensitive to the same wavelength as the transmitter (duplex operation).
Once the transceiver is in a fault isolation mode, due to a particular conditions detected by a state machine (for example see U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/304,393) or when controlled by the user via the IIC interface, the transceiver can provide coarse measurement of the location of high ORL point. By sending a short pulse and monitoring the comparator 158 (issuing an interrupt in the microcontroller 118) the transceiver can measure the round trip delay to the fault. For example a microcontroller 118 operating at 4 MHz clock can detect the reflection within accuracy of similar or better that 4 clock units. The propagation speed of light in the fiber is ˜200 m/ μSec. A round trip delay of 1 μSec (4 clock cycles) represents a fault at 100 m from the source. The timing information, translated to distance, can also be made available via the IIC interface 77 to a host or other higher layer of the system. By measuring internal delays of the components during fabrication those delays can be offset from the raw time difference for increased accuracy. Also, repeating the measurement multiple times and averaging the result can be utilized to increase accuracy and repeatability. For application requiring a finer resolution of distance location microcontroller 118 operating at a higher clock rate would provide better resolution (e.g. 40 MHz clock can yield 10 m or better resolution). Alternatively a dedicated counter can be set with a clock rate higher than the microcontroller, whose start count signal is received from the microcontroller at the impulse transmit, and stop signal is received from the comparator 158. The microcontroller can read the counter and provide the location information at much higher resolution without incurring the cost of high speed microcontroller.
Another aspect of the test mode control using the microcontroller 118 is the ability to adjust power to the laser driver in order to drive the highest possible impulse into the fiber. Laser driver capability maybe sometimes limited due to its output stage to 80 or 100 mA maximum value. Utilizing the features of open loop microcontroller 118, is to control the laser power to maximum for the pulse used to measure reflections. Since the microcontroller 118 controls laser bias and modulation, large power pulses for measurement purpose can be sent. The reflected signal will be higher and can be detected while the threshold level of the comparator is fixed. An additional current drive, beyond the laser driver capability, can be added via a dedicated transistor, schematically depicted as 121 in
Increasing the receiver sensitivity to detect reflected signal is also important. The threshold level of the comparator 158 is sometimes adjusted during manufacturing such that a 14 dB ORL reflection will be below such threshold (called Test Signal Detect threshold) and reflections from an open connector will not be identified during normal operation of the transceiver as a data transport link. In order to enable fault location estimation as described above, and still provide link indication properly during operation, the comparator 158 threshold level must be adjustable. For example, the comparator 158 may be designed so that the level of threshold is controlled by a resistor, (for example post amplifiers are commercially available from Maxim with built in signal detect that is adjustable via changing of a resistor value) and using a variable resistor whose value the microcontroller can adjust (e.g. Maxim MAX5160), both tasks can be achieved. In
For a transceiver that has the improved sensitivity during impulse detection (e.g. −23 dBm) and high output pulse power (e.g. +2 dBm) there is a dynamic range of 25 dB. If an open fiber reflects −15 dB of the incident power another 10 dB can be useful for propagation. For a fiber with 0.5 dB/km attenuation the location of the reflection that will be detected can be as far as 10 km. Transmit +2 dBm, 5 dB attenuation to the fault −15 db reflection and another 5 dB attenuation on the way back will result in −23 dBm which is the sensitivity limit.
Furthermore, instead of sending a light impulse the microcontroller can send a sequence of pulses. Using special cross-correlation to detect the sequence can be utilized to increase the sensitivity even of the receiver.
Therefore, it will be appreciated that the present invention provides an optical transceiver adapted for use in an optical fiber data transmission system which is capable of detecting reflections in fiber connection.
Although the present invention has been described in relation to specific embodiments it should be appreciated that the present invention is not limited to these specific embodiments as a number of variations are possible while remaining within the scope of the present invention. In particular, the specific implementations illustrated are purely exemplary and may be varied in ways too numerous to enumerate in detail. Accordingly they should not be viewed as limiting in nature.
The present application claims priority under 35 USC 119 (e) of provisional application Ser. No. 60/500,573 filed Sep. 5, 2003, the disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.
Number | Date | Country | |
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60500573 | Sep 2003 | US |