OXADM Restoration Scheme: Approach to Optical Ring Network Protection

This paper describes our recent approach toward advanced optical ring network through the development of optical cross add and drop multiplexer (OXADM). The OXADM prototype system focuses on providing survivability through restoration against failure, such as cable cut, in ring optical network. It features two different bandwidths which operate in working and protection line in a ring configuration. Two types of restoration scheme have been proposed to assure data flow continuously by means of linear/multiplex protection and ring protection. The BER characteristics were measured at 2.5 Gbps (OC-48) and small degradation was observed, as confirmed by a comparison of these simulation results with those obtained from systems without restoration element. The OXADM has the same features of the conventional OADM node but with more efficiency and reliability due to internally routing mechanisms and no `drop and re-add function´ is needed to route the signal to alternative path or processed the signals in both electronic and optical domain as practice in conventional nodes today.