Minimizing power consumption in Mixed Line-Rate translucent optical networks

This work proposes a Routing and Wavelength Assignment (RWA) algorithm for network planning aiming to minimize the power expended in Mixed Line-Rate (MLR) translucent optical networks by reducing the number of power consuming components such as regenerators and add/drop terminals, using several data rates and modulation formats. In particular, an algorithm for solving the Energy-Aware RWA (EA-RWA) problem in MLR translucent networks based on an Integer Linear Programming (ILP) formulation is proposed. Our study shows that energy savings can be obtained by minimizing the power consumed at the optical layer, through the reduction of the number of power-consuming components in conjunction with the data rate and modulation format adaptation.