Optical Fast Circuit Switching Networks Employing Dynamic Waveband Tunnel

We propose a novel dynamic hierarchical optical path network architecture that achieves efficient optical fast circuit switching. In order to complete wavelength path setup/teardown efficiently, the proposed network adaptively manages waveband paths and bundles of optical paths, which provide virtual mesh connectivity between node pairs for wavelength paths. Numerical experiments show that operational and facility costs are significantly reduced by employing the adaptive virtual waveband connections. key words: hierarchical optical path network, optical circuit switching, routing and wavelength assignment, waveband, dynamic control