Comparison of routing and wavelength assignment algorithms for optical networks

The routing and wavelength assignment algorithm is indispensable to operate optical networks, which consist of the wavelength division multiplexing technique and optical cross-connect systems. This paper focuses on the routing and wavelength algorithm that minimizes the number of wavelengths for the static path demand situation. The paper shows that the routing problem and the wavelength assignment problem can be solved simultaneously by employing the multicommodity flow model, which has been comprehensively studied in the literature. On the basis of this notion, a heuristic routing and wavelength assignment algorithm is proposed. Through numerical examples, the proposed algorithm is compared with conventional algorithms that run under the same criteria