Effects of PMD on hybrid WDM/OCDM networks

This paper analyses the effects of polarization mode dispersion (PMD) on the blocking probability performance of optical networks that uses the hybrid technology of wavelength division multiplexing and optical code division multiplexing (WDM/OCDM). In these networks virtual paths based on code/wavelength channels (VCP/VWP) are dynamically established to attend the traffic demand. We use a routing channel assignment (RCA) based on genetic algorithm to established the VCP/VWP´s. The main results show that the network blocking probability caused by PMD depends on parameters of optical orthogonal codes (OOC) like weight and length.