Experimental demonstration of packet-rate 10-Gb/s OOK OSNR monitoring for QoS-aware cross-layer packet protection.

A cross-layer network platform may enable introspective access to the physical layer, allowing optical performance monitoring measurements to feedback to higher layers for packet rerouting and protection. We experimentally demonstrate quality-of-service-aware packet protection that leverages cross-layer signaling based on the monitoring of packets' optical-signal-to-noise ratio. In order to detect degraded data streams, the monitoring system is based on a delay-line Mach-Zehnder interferometer and a field-programmable gate array. The system is realized in an experimental cross-layer enabled optical packet switched fabric, measuring the optical-signal-to-noise ratio for 10-Gb/s OOK streams. The packet protection scheme uses the dynamic performance measurements to actuate a rerouting of high-quality-of-service packets. 8 × 10-Gb/s wavelength-striped optical messages are rerouted through the fabric error-free (bit-error rates less than 10(-12)).