A single-hop wavelength routed LAN/MAN architecture

Future photonic LANs and MANs may be based upon single-hop architectures using wavelength division multiplexing and passive coupling. In such systems, stations access shared sets of channels using some combination of receiver or transmitter tunability. Due to the optical device limitations however, the number of available channels may not be as large as previously envisioned. As a result, spatial wavelength reuse may be required to achieve networks with an acceptable number of stations and performance. We present a single hop wavelength routed optical network architecture, referred to as the flat channel controller network (FCCN). The network is divided into a set of local optical clusters interconnected via a static wavelength router. Two architectural variations are examined. The first uses a distributed control scheme for signaling within each cluster and requires each station to have only a single fixed receiver and a single fast agile transmitter. The second uses a dedicated control channel within each cluster and requires each station to have an additional fixed receiver. Three packet switched media access protocols are examined, static TDMA, and two reservation protocols.