Heuristic solutions to optimize the traffic routing in space division multiplexing networks

Abstract

This paper underscores the symbiosis between industrial engineering techniques and optical communication technologies, bringing valuable insights to the optimization of traffic routing in communication networks using constructive heuristics. Exploring and realizing the potential of optical fiber networks has received more attention due to the popularity of various network services and the ensuing increase in overall internet traffic. Space Division Multiplexing (SDM) stands out among the technologies designed to increase the functionality of core and urban mesh/ring networks. SDM's primary goal is to significantly increase transmission system bandwidths by effectively using the spatial dimension. The routing of traffic within flex-grid SDM optical networks has been optimized in this paper using two novel heuristic algorithms. The experimental results show that the proposed algorithms outperform the solutions presented in previous research from the literature.