Computer simulation of HDWDM optical fibre communication systems with consideration of fibre nonlinear effects

High density wavelength division multiplexed optical fibre networks can potentially provide huge communication capacity. In order to explore this, a simulation tool has been developed for the design, dimensioning, optimisation and analysis of proposed networks. The development of this generic HDWDM modelling tool is a potentially non-trivial problem, due to the many different possible network configurations, all the different optical components available and the variable number of multiplexed channels that may be required. Fibre nonlinear effects cause further problems to which particular attention is paid