Routing in an Optical Local Area Network using Wavelength Conversion

Abstract

This project investigates the use of all-optical wavelength conversion to perform routing in a fiber optic local area network (LAN). In particular, the goal is to implement a scalable LAN that demonstrates reconfigurability and transparency, with minimal loss and bounded latency, enabling real time performance in the harsh conditions of the avionics environment. In these experiments, latency was reduced by over 55% when compared to an optical-electrical-optical (O-E-O) conversion technique, with the possibility for 75% reduction by using integrated optics (Jessop and Clifford, 2006)