RTA Algorithms on Buffer-Efficient Optical TDM Rings

Optical TDM allows multiple traffic streams to share the bandwidth of a wavelength. This paper presents a framework for determining the capacity and routing strategy needed to establish different logical topologies on an optical TDM ring network with propagation delay but no Optical Time Slot Interchange (OTSI); OTSI requires optical buffering which is not practical at the current time. We show that an optical TDM ring is characterized by a parameter called cycle length. The impact of the cycle length on the capacity of a bi-directional optical TDM ring is evaluated and joint routing and time-slot assignment strategies are developed.