Signals and Communication Technology

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Stephan Pachnicke

Fiber-Optic Transmission
Networks
Efficient Design and Dynamic Operation

123
Dr.-Ing. Stephan Pachnicke
Dipl.-Wirt.-Ing.
Chair for High Frequency Technology
TU Dortmund
Friedrich-Wöhler-Weg 4
44221 Dortmund
Germany
e-mail: stephan.pachnicke@tu-dortmund.de

ISSN 1860-4862
ISBN 978-3-642-21054-9 e-ISBN 978-3-642-21055-6
DOI 10.1007/978-3-642-21055-6
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Preface

Next generation optical communication systems will be characterized by

increasing data rates, dynamic adaptation to the actual traffic demands and
improved energy efficiency. In future all-optical meshed networks it is highly
desirable that transparent optical paths can be set up on-the-fly, providing
bandwidth-on-demand and shutting down unused resources automatically.
Appropriate design of an optical core network is crucial as the capital expen-
diture for such a system is extremely high. Currently the split-step Fourier method
is employed in state-of-the-art transmission system simulators to solve the non-
linear Schrödinger equation describing the propagation of light in a single mode
glass fiber. Unfortunately, even on today’s computer systems the simulation of a
wavelength division multiplex transmission system with a high channel count and
a transmission distance of several thousand kilometers is still very time-consuming
with computational efforts of hours to several days. This is why in this book
several alternative methods are proposed to reduce the simulation time. They range
from a meta-model based optimization method for finding an optimum operation
point of a transmission system in a large parameter space with only a very low
number of numerical simulations to parallelization techniques for solving the
nonlinear Schrödinger equation in an efficient way on a graphics processing unit
(GPU) with a high number of cores. Alternatively, fast analytical models for the
approximation of various degradation effects occurring on the transmission line
can be used.
The design of fiber optical core networks is evolving rapidly from static point-
to-point transmission systems to meshed networks with transparent optical cross-
connects enabling dynamic reconfiguration of the network and leading to longer
transparent transmission distances. During recent years several research projects
have been conducted throughout the world investigating on-the-fly provisioning of
bandwidth with demand granularities in the order of a wavelength capacity.
To exploit the maximum transparent reach the inclusion of physical-layer
impairments in the routing and wavelength assignment process is desirable. In this
book constraint-based routing and regenerator placement are presented based on
fast analytical models for approximating the signal quality. It is shown that the

v
vi Preface

blocking probability of dynamic wavelength demands as well as the number of

required optical-electrical-optical regenerator components can be reduced signif-
icantly by the inclusion of physical-layer impairments. Finally, it is investigated
how the energy efficiency of an optical core network can be increased considerably
by making use of optical bypasses to keep more traffic entirely in the optical layer
and shutting down unused components in the IP-layer.
Most of the work presented here has been carried out in close collaboration with
industry partners during my time at the Chair for High Frequency Technology of
TU Dortmund, Germany. The parallelization techniques on GPUs have already
been included in the commercially distributed optical system simulator PHOTOSS.
Network operation research has lead to the development of a new simulation tool
named CBRSuite.

Acknowledgments

First and foremost, I wish to acknowledge sincerely Prof. Peter M. Krummrich for
his help throughout the whole project and for his support and encouragement to
complete this work.
I would also like to acknowledge Prof. Edgar Voges, emeritus of the Chair for
High Frequency Technology, who took part in this work passionately. Unfortu-
nately, Prof. Voges passed away much too early in the end of the year 2008 so he
could not see the completion of this work anymore. He gave me valuable advice
until his very end. I will always remember him for all his contributions and as a
role-model of a caring professor.
For their extensive support in implementing the simulation tools PHOTOSS and
CBRSuite, I would like to thank my collaborators Nicolas Luck, Christian
Remmersmann, Daniel Teufer and Matthias Westhäuser as well as the involved
students and software developers. It should be mentioned at this point that many of
the GPU routines presented in this book have been implemented by Adam
Chachaj. Many thanks go also to my former colleagues, especially to Martin
Windmann for his permanent help in day-to-day and special matters.
Special thanks go to Petra Sauerland for many technical drawings and to Iris
Wolff for taking over administrative tasks.

Dortmund, November 2011 Stephan Pachnicke

Contents

1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.1 Historical Evolution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.2 Motivation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.3 Structure of This Book. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

Part I Optical Network Design

2 Fiber Optical Transmission Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

2.1 Generic Setup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
2.2 Transmitters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
2.3 Modulation Formats . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
2.4 Fiber Properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
2.5 Amplifiers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
2.6 Optical Cross Connects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
2.7 Receivers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
2.8 Electrical Signal Processing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

3 Simulation of Fiber Optical Transmission Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

3.1 Modeling of Fiber Optical Transmission Systems . . . . . . . . . . . 31
3.1.1 Attenuation and Dispersion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
3.1.2 Amplified Spontaneous Emission Noise. . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
3.1.3 Fiber Birefringence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
3.1.4 Nonlinear Fiber Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
3.1.5 Coupled Nonlinear Schrödinger Equation. . . . . . . . . . . . 42
3.1.6 Split-Step Fourier Method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
3.1.7 Modeling of Polarization Mode Dispersion . . . . . . . . . . 46
3.1.8 Calculation of the Bit Error Ratio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48

vii
viii Contents

3.2 The Fiber Optical Transmission Simulator PHOTOSS . . . . . . . . 50

References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52

4 Efficient Design of Fiber Optical Transmission Systems. . . . . . . . . 55

4.1 Meta-Heuristic Based Optimization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
4.1.1 Overview of Employed Algorithms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
4.1.2 Meta-Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
4.1.3 Analysis of Exemplary Transmission Systems . . . . . . . . 63
4.2 Parallelization of a Simulation on a Graphics
Processing Unit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ..... 67
4.2.1 Implementation of the FFT and Split-Step Fourier
Method on a GPU. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
4.2.2 Stratified Monte-Carlo Sampling Technique . . . . . . . . . . 78
4.3 Analytical Modeling of the Signal Quality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
4.3.1 Linear Degradation Effects. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
4.3.2 Nonlinear-Degradation Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
4.3.3 System Example . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
4.4 Summary and Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99

Part II Optical Network Operation

5 Dynamic Operation of Fiber Optical Transmission Networks . . . . 105

5.1 Network Architecture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
5.2 Demand Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
5.3 Constraint-Based Routing and Regenerator Placement . . . . . . . . 111
5.3.1 Assessment of the Signal Quality by a Single Figure
of Merit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
5.3.2 Physical Layer Impairment Aware Routing Algorithm. . . 114
5.3.3 Regenerator Placement Heuristic. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116
5.3.4 Results. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118
5.3.5 Reduction of the Required Number of Electrical
Regenerators. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 121
5.4 Extensions to High Bit Rate Systems with Novel
Modulation Formats. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
5.5 Improvement of Energy Efficiency . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129
5.5.1 Power Consumption of Deployed Components . . . . . . . . 131
5.5.2 Grooming. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132
5.5.3 Approach for Reducing Core Network Energy
Consumption . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 133
5.5.4 Examplary Study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 134
5.5.5 Reduction of Energy Consumption by Load-Adaptive
Operation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 138
Contents ix

5.6 Summary and Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140

References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142

6 Conclusions and Outlook . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147

References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151

Appendix . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153

Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159