Optical monitoring system for scalable all-optical networks

High traffic and high capacity communications are believed to become cost-effective with the use of all-optical networks based on OFDM (optical frequency division multiplexing). In such networks, new strategies for OA and M (operation, administration and maintenance) functions need to be developed so as to suit the introduction of a new optical layer where in wavelength routing is exploited and faults are detected in a transparent manner. In this paper, we propose a scheme to monitor optical channels in the optical layer for supporting OA and M functions of a transparent and scalable photonic network.