Physical layer analysis of AWG based optical packet switch architecture

Abstract

Optical packet switching is the next generation switching technique in conjunction with mature electronic switching. In optical packet switching, the core router plays an important role in the routing and buffering of packets. In recent past, AWG based optical router are proposed and heavily investigated due to its very low insertion loss and very simple wavelength dependent routing pattern. In this paper, a further modification in an AWG based optical packet switch is proposed. These modifications improve the signal reception quality at the output. Power budget analysis is presented to evaluate the buffer capacity. As a physical layer parameters, the minimum switch power is evaluated using the mathematical model and at the BER level of 10⁻⁹ the maximum buffering capacity is evaluated. Finally, simulation results are presented in terms of network layer parameters, packet loss probability and average delay. The packet loss probability is as low as 10⁻⁷ well under acceptable limits.