Electronic wavelength translation in optical networks

We study the benefits of electronic (regenerative) wavelength translation in optical networks providing wavelength channel circuit-switching among users. The electronic translation means that an optical signal on one wavelength is converted to electronics and then converted again into an optical signal on another wavelength. A previous study has demonstrated that wavelength translation can significantly improve the performance of a large mesh network. We consider an optical network architecture based on a mesh topology where each node is supplied with an array of W transmitters and receivers (where W is the number of wavelengths). For this architecture we study effectiveness of electronic wavelength translation as a low cost alternative to all-optical wavelength translation. We propose wavelength assignment algorithms over a given routing path which minimize the number of wavelength changes. The results of our performance study for a static routing mesh network show that electronic translation with such algorithms can be almost as effective as all-optical wavelength translation. In fact, the performance of electronic translation converge to those of all-optical translation as the size of a large mesh increases.