Number of wavelengths required for constructing large‐scale optical path networks

Abstract

AbstractPhotonic networks that exploit the abundant optical bandwidth capability are needed to realize a truly effective B‐ISDN. We have proposed two optical path schemes, the wavelength path (WP) scheme and the virtual wavelength path (VWP) scheme, wherein wave length division multiplexing/frequency division multiplexing (WDM/FDM) technologies are employed in the path layer of the transport networks. Although wave lengths are precious resources in photonic networks, the number of wavelengths required for any network has never been evaluated because of the NP‐completeness of the wavelength assignment problem. In this paper, we propose heuristic optical path accommodation design algorithms that can minimize the wavelength requirements in the network. We also evaluate the wavelength requirements for large‐scale and irregularly structured physical network topologies utilizing the proposed algorithms. Accordingly, we elucidate, for the first time, that the wavelength requirements for the WP and VWP schemes are almost the same regardless of physical network topologies and path demand distribution patterns.