Resilient Optical Fiber Ladder Network With OADMs to Multiplex Sensors: Binary-State Connectivity Analysis

A novel resilient optical fiber ladder network to multiplex an array of sensors is simulated. The sensors, which can be of many types, are uniquely identified by wavelength-division multiplexing, where channel selection is performed by optical add-drop multiplexers (OADMs). The simulation is a “binary state connectivity analysis.” It predicts that the network: 1) recovers full service after the failure of any one of its interconnecting elements and 2) automatically identifies the affected element by “self-diagnosis.” All combinations of double failures are also explored. The network can recover all, or all but one, channels after nearly every double failure. Moreover, self-diagnosis identifies many of the failure pairs without ambiguity. Even when unique identification of double failure sites is not possible, self-diagnosis provides valuable clues to their whereabouts. Two network protection mechanisms (to recover operation after double failures) and two cabling configurations are critically compared. The network´s performance is favorably contrasted with that of previously reported resilient ladder topologies, especially with respect to its tolerance of double failures.