TWC and AWG based optical switching structure for OVPN in WDM-PON

Abstract:

With the rapid development of optical elements with large capacity and high speed, the network architecture is of great importance in determing the performance of wavelength division multiplexing passive optical network (WDM-PON). This paper proposes a switching structure based on the tunable wavelength converter (TWC) and the arrayed-waveguide grating (AWG) for WDM-PON, in order to provide the function of opitcal virtual private network (OVPN). Using the tunable wavelength converter technology, this switch structure is designed and works between the optical line terminal (OLT) and optical network units (ONUs) in the WDM-PON system. Moreover, the wavelength assignment of upstream/downstream can be realized and direct communication between ONUs is also allowed by privite wavelength channel. Simulation results show that the proposed TWC and AWG based switching structure is able to achieve OVPN function and to gain better performances in terms of bite error rate (BER) and time delay.