Graphical User Interface Capabilities of MATLAB in Centralized Failure Detection System (CFDS)

This paper proposed a MATLAB-based graphical user interface (GUI) development named as Centralized Failure Detection System (CFDS) to increase the efficiency, survivability, and reliability of fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) customer access network. This program will be installed with optical line terminal (OLT) at central office (CO) to monitor the network system and identify any fiber fault that occurs in FTTH downwardly from CO towards residential customer locations. Conventionally, optical time domain reflectometer (OTDR) is used to localize any fiber fault in FTTH upwardly from customer residential location towards CO. However, OTDR can only display a result of a testing line in a time, which tends to time consuming. The usage of passive optical splitter in FTTH with point-to-multipoint (P2MP) configuration is blocking the reflected signal that need to be analyzed by OTDR. Therefore, it becomes a hindrance to detect any faulty fiber with a large number of subscribers and large coverage area downwardly in the fiber plant between the optical splitter and multiple optical network units (ONUs) at different customer residential locations by using OTDR. Thus the troubleshooting work become very complex and leads to increase the maintenance cost. CFDS is interfaced with OTDR to accumulate every network testing result to be displayed on a single computer screen for further analysis. Index Terms Survivability, reliability, FTTH, P2MP configuration, fiber fault.