Interleaved Bundling for Optical Channel Holder Capacity Changes
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional power control techniques in optical networks are slow, leading to inefficient capacity changes in channel holder-based optical links, as they typically involve swapping channels one at a time, resulting in prolonged times for adding or deleting channels, which can cause significant power transitions and impact on in-service channels.
Innovation Solution
An interleaved bundling approach is introduced, where the optical spectrum is divided into slots, allowing capacity changes to be performed in multiple steps with interleaved swapping of channel holders, minimizing the impact of amplifier tilt, ripple, and hole burning effects, and enabling asynchronous operation without coordination between OADM nodes.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Manufacturing precision
If conventional power control techniques are used to swap channels one at a time, then optimization is achieved, but capacity change time becomes excessively long (190-380s per OMS)
Solution Approach 1:
The optical spectrum is divided into M slots, and capacity changes are performed in N steps with interleaved swapping. Each step handles M/N slots with spacing between them, allowing parallel processing of multiple channel swaps simultaneously rather than sequentially one at a time.
Solution Approach 2:
Multiple channel swaps are bundled and executed together in each step. The interleaved bundling approach combines multiple capacity change operations into parallel execution units, achieving both optimization and fast capacity changes simultaneously.
2Productivity
If multiple channels are swapped simultaneously to reduce time, then capacity change speed improves, but power transitions and impacts on in-service channels increase
Solution Approach 1:
The spectrum is segmented into M slots that are processed in N steps. Each step handles only M/N slots with spacing between them, distributing the power transition impact across multiple smaller operations rather than one large simultaneous swap.
Solution Approach 2:
The interleaved bundling performs capacity changes in periodic steps with spacing between processed slots. This periodic action allows the system to recover and stabilize between swaps, reducing cumulative power transitions and harmful effects on in-service channels.
3Loss of time
If channel holders are used to maintain full-fill loading, then optimization time is eliminated, but capacity change operations become complex and time-consuming
Solution Approach 1:
The system uses locally monitored power points at multiplexer input to autonomously determine available capacity. OADM nodes perform capacity changes independently without coordination or communication with other nodes, simplifying the control architecture while maintaining full-fill loading conditions.
Data Source
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AI summary
A method is described herein comprising: responsive to a request for capacity change of X channels of an optical spectrum on an optical section (14) and at an Optical Add/Drop Multiplexer (OADM) node (12) in an optical network (10), dividing the X channels of the optical spectrum into M slots, each slot including one channel or multiple adjacent channels of the optical spectrum, and separating the M slots into N distinct bundles, each bundle including a subset of the slots dispersed throughout the optical spectrum, where X is an integer > 1, M is an integer > 1, and N is an integer > 1; and performing the capacity change of the N bundles in N sequential steps with a maximum number of slots in each step that are interleaved over the optical spectrum, the capacity change in each step including simultaneously performing capacity change for the subset of slots in each bundle wherein the capacity change includes any of adding channels by replacing channel holders (20) and removing channels by adding channel holders (20), or some or all of the M slots have equal or unequal bandwidth, and bandwidth of some or all of the M slots is dynamically adjustable based on the capacity change handled on that step, or a given channel of the X channels is assigned a corresponding capacity change in a given step when the given channel falls partially or fully within a given slot for the given step, or the performing the capacity change is performed, when power is known to be available at multiplexer input using locally monitored points, without coordination and communication with other OADM nodes in the optical network (10), or if a capacity change is not requested for one of the M slots, optical signals or channel holders on that slot remain uninterrupted during the capacity change.