Cluster processing for the study of optical burst-mode digital signal processing receivers and subsystems for dynamic optical burst switching networks

The development of fast analog-to-digital converters makes feasible the use of DSP techniques for burst-mode digital receivers operating at 10 Gb/s. MATLAB offers an easy and rapid route for the development and offline validation of new processing algorithms, but is somewhat limited by the slow processing time. Whilst real time development is possible using FPGA technology the cost and slower design cycle make this approach less attractive in a research environment. To overcome the processing time limitation of MATLAB based DSP for the evaluation of parameters that require the capture of a great number of bursts, we present a cluster based processing system for investigating the performance of digital burst-mode receivers in the context of dynamic OBS networks. Using this cluster processing system we measured dynamic range, bit error rate and packet error rate of a digital burst-mode receiver.