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Design and simulation of a ROADM-based DWDM network

Conference Paper · May 2013

DOI: 10.1109/IranianCEE.2013.6599722

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 Design and Simulation of a ROADM-based DWDM Network

Vahid Abedifar*, Sadegh Abbasi Shahkooh**, Ali Emami***, Ali Poureslami****, S. A. Ayoughi *****
* Cyber Space Research Institute, AbedifarV@gmail.com
** Cyber Space Research Institute, Shahkooh@itrc.ac.ir
*** Cyber Space Research Institute, Emami@itrc.ac.ir
**** Cyber Space Research Institute, Poureslami@itrc.ac.ir
***** Cyber Space Research Institute, Sa.ayoughi@yahoo.com

Abstract: Reconfigurable Optical Add/Drop Multiplexers, The existing ROADM architectures which are used in
ROADMs, are key enablers of the modern optical
communication services to support the remote provisioning of various applications have different characteristics. One of
the optical paths and reconfiguring the network topology. the properties of ROADMs is "Colourlessness". It means
According to the variety of the characteristics and architectures that any port of add/drop structure can add or drop any
of ROADMs, there are some tradeoffs for ROADM-based
DWDM network designers. In this paper different architectures wavelength [3]. When a ROADM is "Directionless", any
and characteristics of ROADMs are addressed. Three ROADM port of add/drop structure can add/drop a channel to/from
architectures are proposed and finally, a five-node DWDM any degree of ROADM [3]. In "Contentionless"
network based on the proposed ROADM architectures is
designed in order to investigate two major issues of these kinds ROADMs, one can add/drop channels of the same
of networks. One of these issues is the effect of adding/dropping wavelengths to/from any degree of ROADM [3].
of channels on the passed through channels quality. The other "Multicast" means that a channel can also be routed to
issue is the effect of optical amplifiers input power fluctuation
on the quality of received signals. The former is shown through some output degrees, while it is dropped. It is called
simulation and the latter is investigated through measurement. "drop and continue", also. "Scalability" is the ability to
The simulation and measurement results show that in ROADM- increase the number of ROADM degrees [4].
based DWDM networks, the wavelengths must be managed
precisely to avoid the network performance degradation. "Modularity" is a key feature of ROADMs to provide the
upgradability and reconfigurability [4].
Keywords: DWDM Network, Reconfigurable Optical Different ROADM architectures are investigated in
Add/Drop Multiplexer, ROADM. literature [3-6]. One of the ROADM architectures is
coloured in which the add/drop function is not colour
1. Introduction blind [3]. It has one WSS in the output port of each
Growth of the users' bandwidth demand has caused the degree. Other architecture is coloured with WSS in input
fast and reliable provisioning of the optical paths to be a and output port of each degree [4]. A colourless
main objective of the optical communications service architecture with WSS in each degree is stated in [3]. The
providers. DWDM technology, [1], emerged to help the other ROADM structure is Colourless and Directionless,
service providers to handle the users' increasing traffic. CD, in order to avoid a separate add/drop structure for
Introduction of the new communication services like e- each degree, [3]. A Colourless, Directionless and
health and e-gaming exacerbates the need of being Contentionless, CDC, architecture is presented in [3] in
equipped by a mechanism for remote and reliable which m*n WSS module is used. Another CDC
provisioning of the optical paths. For this purpose, architecture, using Switch, Filter and Power Splitter is
Reconfigurable Optical Add/Drop Multiplexers, proposed in [3] because m*n WSS is not available
ROADMs, provide various facilities for optical network commercially. A CDC architecture is proposed in [5] that
managers to reconfigure the network, remotely. is designed based on (De)Multiplexer and Photonic Cross
Some of the common optical modules that may exist in Connect, PXC, [7]. The other structure which is proposed
the ROADM structure are Optical in [6] is CDC that uses WSS in each output port and
Multiplexer/Demultiplexer, Optical Power Coupler in input ports. One can use PXC and Coupler in
Splitter/Coupler, Tuneable Optical Filter and Optical output ports and WSS in input ports of ROADM, as
Switch. One major building block of some ROADMs is presented in [5]. The other architecture is based on
Wavelength Selective Switch, WSS, [2]. Using this Coupler and WSS in both input and output ports to
module, any channel of any input port can be switched to reduce the PXC size [5].
any output port [2]. One important issue in ROADM-based DWDM
networks is the network management in terms of

978-1-4673-5634-3/13/$31.00 ©2013 IEEE

add/drop of wavelengths in intermediate nodes of light 8*1 Coupler are used for providing the colourless drop
paths. As we discuss later, add/drop of wavelengths in and colourless add, respectively.
intermediate nodes can affect the quality of other Regarding the development of mesh topologies in
channels passing through. Therefore, the network optical network design, it is a major trend to implement
manager must deal with the wavelengths precisely to ROADM nodes which are able to support the mesh
avoid the signal quality degradation. networks. Therefore, in the third proposed ROADM
The rest of paper is organized as follows. In section 2, architecture, the number of degrees is designed to be 4.
the proposed design of a ROADM-based DWDM The proposed architecture is called CD_4D, as depicted
network, including the design of proposed ROADM in Fig. 3. As shown in Fig. 3, in addition to the basic
nodes and the derived DWDM network, is investigated. add/drop structure of each degree, there is a centralized
Section 3 presents the simulation and measurement colourless and directionless add/drop structure for up to 8
results of the proposed ROADM-based DWDM network channels. As the B_3D and CD_2D, the scalability and
to address two issues of these kinds of networks. Paper modularity are taken into account in CD_4D architecture.
concludes in section 4. It is noticeable that optical power management, optical
cross connect management and wavelength management
2. Proposed ROADM-based DWDM Network can be done by using the proposed ROADM
In this section, a ROADM-based DWDM network is architectures.
proposed. Section 2.1 details the proposed ROADM 2.2 Proposed ROADM-based DWDM Network
architectures. A 5-node mesh topology based on the
In this section, a five-node mesh topology for 40-
proposed ROADM architectures is investigated in section
channel DWDM Network is designed based on the
2.2.
proposed ROADM architectures. Block diagram of the
2.1 Proposed ROADM Architectures proposed network is depicted in Fig. 4. Recall that the
According to different applications, ROADMs may proposed ROADM architectures provide different
have various functionalities. In this paper, three ROADM characteristics. Therefore, there are different modes of
architectures are proposed in order to have different transmission and reception in the proposed network. It
choices in network design. The modularity is taken into means that through some paths, one can transmit and
account in the proposed ROADM architectures. receive up to 40 channels in only coloured (basic)
The first proposed ROADM structure is depicted in manner. Some paths provide colourless and directionless
Fig. 1. It is named B_3D in this paper. The B_3D has 3 transmission and reception of up to 8 channels. In the
degrees. It is a coloured (basic) architecture in which the intermediate nodes, basic add/drop percentage of
different degrees have independent and unique add/drop channels is up to 100% and colourless and directionless
structure. The add/drop structure of each degree is a add/drop percentage is up to 20%.
module, named MD40, including a 40*1 Multiplexer and In the proposed DWDM network, the channels
a 1*40 Demultiplexer. In the output of each degree there wavelength is selected between 1529.55 nm to 1560.61
is a 9*1 WSS that together with a 1*8 Splitter yields the nm with channel spacing of 100 GHz, which is
second module of architecture, called W9_S8. It is worth compatible with the ITU-T standard [8]. The proposed
mentioning that the 1*9 WSS and 1*8 Splitter are used in DWDM network can support different types of transport
order to provide the scalability of the proposed network interfaces like NG-SDH up to STM64, OTN up
architecture. There are two Optical Amplifiers in the to OTU2 and Ethernet up to 10GE.
input and output of each degree, constructing the other Because of the wavelength management capability of
module of B_3D, called A2. Using the B_3D, up to 40 ROADMs, one major concern of use them in optical
different basic channels can be added/dropped to/from the networks is the effect of adding or dropping of channels
output of each degree or passed through the ROADM. on the other channels quality. In other word, the
Two major characteristics which can facilitate the wavelengths add/drop scheme in intermediate nodes may
network design and management are being Colourless be changed by network manager in particular times. This
and Directionless. Therefore, the second ROADM change may affect the performance of other channels
architecture, called CD_2D, is proposed. It is shown in which are passing through that intermediate node.
Fig. 2. In CD_2D, the same modules of the B_3D are One other drawback of changing the channels
used. Moreover, a colourless and directionless Add/Drop add/drop plan in intermediate nodes is the variation of
structure is constructed. Using the CD_2D architecture, optical power in the EDFAs input. As a result, the gain
one can add or drop up to 8 channels in colourless and spectrum of EDFA changes because of dependence of
directionless manner. It is equal to 20% of channels in a gain spectrum of EDFA on the input power level [9].
40-channel DWDM network. The colourless and This phenomenon may cause variation in the signals
directionless structure is made up of a 1*4 Splitter to quality in receivers. In order to maintain the signals
provide the directionless add and a 1*4 WSS to provide quality and avoid the network performance degradation,
the directionless drop. Furthermore, a 1*9 WSS and an it is essential to have a compensation mechanism. One
solution is to use variable attenuators in proper points of
network to compensate the power level variation.

Fig. 4: The proposed ROADM-based DWDM network

3. Simulation Results end Discussion

Fig. 1: The first proposed ROADM architecture In order to study the effect of add/drop of wavelengths
on other channels quality, the simulation of the proposed
5-node 40-channel DWDM network based on the
proposed ROADMs is done by using the Optisystem 3.0
software. The Bit Error Rate, BER, is used to evaluate the
optical channels quality. In a two-link light path of the
proposed network, the BER of one received channel is
obtained for different number of added/dropped channels
in pass through node. The results are depicted in Fig. 5
and Fig. 6. The lengths of fibres are considered to be 80
km and 120 km for two spans of link, respectively. The
Dispersion Compensation Fibre, DCF, length is 4.66 km
and 7 km, respectively. According to the proposed
ROADM architectures, there are two optical amplifiers,
EDFAs, in each span of the proposed network. The
values of EDFAs are considered to be 20, 20, 20, 20.3
decibel. Each channel has a power of 0 dBm in
transmitter side.
As shown in Fig. 5, the BER of the received channel
decreases while the number of dropped channels
increases. Because as the number of dropped channels
Fig. 2: The second proposed ROADM architecture increases, the number of existent channels which are
passed through the node decreases. It means that the total
power of channels on second span fibre decreases. As a
result, the nonlinearities and BER decreases. The results
of Fig. 6 can be analysed in the same manner. As the
number of added channels in intermediate node increases,
the total power on fibre increases. Then, because of more
nonlinearity, the BER of received channel increases.
As mentioned before, another important issue in
ROADM-based DWDM networks is the dependence of
the EDFAs gain to the input power level. In other word,
when the channels are added or dropped in a pass through
node, it is essential to consider the power level in EDFAs
inputs and compensate the fluctuations in order to have
acceptable signal quality in receiver side. To show this
effect, some measurements has been carried out in which
the input level of the EDFA was changed in the range of -
5 dBm to -29 dBm in steps of 3 dBm by adding/dropping
the channels in previous node of light path. Then the
Fig. 3: The third proposed ROADM architecture output power of EDFA, in constant gain mode, is
 monitored for all cases. The results showed that when the 4. Conclusion
power level in input of EDFAs changes, the output power ROADMs play an important role in modern day
of EDFAs is affected. This phenomenon can affect the optical communication networks. In this paper the main
passed through channels quality in receiver side. The characteristics and several architectures of ROADMs
measurement result is depicted in Fig. 7. were addressed. Then, three ROADM architectures were
One possible solution is to use variable attenuators in proposed. In order to study two main challenges of
proper points of light path in order to compensate the implementing DWDM networks by using ROADMs, a
effect of changing the channels add/drop scheme. five-node mesh topology based on the proposed ROADM
-22
architectures was simulated. The first addressed issue of
10 use of ROADMs was the variation of BER of passed
through channels by variation of the number of
10
-24
added/dropped channels in intermediate nodes of a light
path. The second issue is the gain spectrum dependence
-26 of EDFAs on input power level. The results showed that
10
it is essential to manage add/drop of channels precisely
BER

and compensate its effect on the other channels quality.

-28
10 One possible solution is to use variable attenuators in
specific locations of light path.
-30
10
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Fig. 7: Variation of output power of EDFA with input power level

variation

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