Logically rearrangeable multihop lightwave networks

The optimization problem of rearrangeable multihop lightwave networks is considered. The authors formulate the flow and wavelength assignment problem, when minimizing the maximum flow in the network, as a mixed integer optimization problem subject to linear constraints. The problem is decomposed into two independent subproblems, the wavelength assignment (or connectivity problem) and the flow assignment (or routing problem). A simple heuristic provides a meaningful formulation to the connectivity problem, in a form similar to a transportation problem. An algorithm is then proposed which finds a heuristic initial logical connectivity diagram and the corresponding routing, and then iterates from that solution by applying branch-exchange operations to the connectivity diagram. The algorithm was tested on illustrative traffic matrices for an 8 node network with two transmitters and two receivers per node, and an improvement in achievable throughput over the Perfect Shuffle interconnection pattern was shown in all cases. >