Silent Failure Localization on Optical Transport System

A silent failure is a kind of failure that existing optical devices or equipment cannot detect although the failure actually happens. This failure makes it more difficult for maintenance operators to identify the fault point, which potentially deteriorates the reliability of the network. To address this issue, we propose a unique silent failure localization method using characteristic information obtained from the optical devices and equipment. As an example of the silent failures, a wavelength selective switch (WSS) failure is studied, and we propose a detection and localization scheme based on the method to use in a WSS failure scenario. Results of a field experiment revealed that the proposed scheme properly localize the fault point with an accuracy of within 4%.