An Optical Fiber Monitoring and Alert System for A Passive Optical Network Based on IoT

Abstract

The one important in a passive optical network (PON) for high-speed communication is fault detection and fault alert due to the troubles of passive optical fiber or passive optical devices. Any failure of optical devices in the optical link can influence to a huge amount of data loss in the optical network. However, deployment of fault detection and alert devices or systems is extremely limited due to the financial implications and reliability of the devices or systems. Thus, this work proposes a design and implementation of a cost-effective way for detection when an optical link has a fault in a PON. Also, real-time wirelessly alert to a responsible person. This monitoring technique is based on bidirectional light-wave communication with single-core single-mode optical fiber and internet of things (IoT) technology. Which consists of 2 sub-systems namely the transmitter of the optical fiber monitoring system (OFMS-Tx) is located at the optical network unit (ONU). And the receiver of the fiber monitoring system (OFMS-Rx) is located at the optical line terminal (OLT). Both parts operating with microcontrollers, which the OFMS-Tx microcontroller uses for generating a monitoring signal that depends on situations such as normal operation situation or power outage situation. The OFMS-Rx microcontroller act as a monitoring signal decoder for the decision of the OFMS-Tx and optical link situations. Also, OFMS-Rx real-time alerts to responsible person when fault occurring, such as optical link fail or ONU power outage. From experimental results show that the proposed system is automatically working for real-time optical fiber link detection and immediately alert to the responsible person within 11 seconds when a fault occurs. Also, the proposed system could transmit a monitoring signal in the network over a fiber distance of 70 km.