Power management system design of an optical multiwavelength transport network

Multiwavelength optical transparent networking is a very active research area. Power management system design, including power budget planning and overall network signal power monitoring and control strategies, constitutes an important design consideration in the overall implementation of such networking concepts. The paper discusses some crucial issues in the power management system design of a multiwavelength transport network (MWTN). Based on the established MWTN node and network architecture, a node isolation principle is first identified to be a key requirement. Two basic network power management strategies, using active gain controlled and loss controlled equalisations, respectively, are analysed and modelled using realistic component parameters. Numerical simulations have established the superiority of the loss controlled method. Effects of varied signal bit-rate and network node component losses are also modelled. Tradeoff issues in the node component design and parameter specifications are discussed in detail, Finally, considering the transport nature of the MWTN (i.e. potentially covering wide geographical areas within the network topology), numerical modelling has been extended to study the feasibility for upgrading the system to operate at 10 Gbit/s channel rate. Also investigated are issues related with implementing dispersion compensation schemes into the node and network architecture