A New Multicast Wavelength Assignment Algorithm in Wavelength-Converted Optical Networks

In this paper, we propose a new multicast wavelength assignment algorithm called NGWA with complexity of O(N), where N is the number of nodes on a multicast tree. The whole procedure of NGWA algorithm is separated into two phases: the partial wavelength assignment phase and the complete wavelength assignment phase. It tries to minimize the total number of wavelength conversions of the multicast tree. Meanwhile, the number of different wavelengths used is minimized locally. Through illustrative example and simulation experiments, it is proved that the NGWA algorithm works well and achieves satisfactory performance in terms of the average number of wavelength conversions and the average blocking probability.