Pre-allocation media access control protocols for multiple access WDM photonic networks

摘要

Media access control protocols for an optically interconnected star-coupled system with pre-allocated WDMA channels are introduced and compared. The photonic network is based on a passive star-coupled WDM--based configuration with high topological connectivity and low complexity. The channels are pre-allocated to the nodes with this approach, where each node has a home channel that it uses either for all data packet transmissions or all data packet receptions. A home channel may be shared if the number of nodes exceeds the number of channels in the system. This approach does not require both tunable transmitters and tunable receivers. The performance of a generalized random access protocol is compared to a protocol based on interleaved time multiplexing. Both protocols are designed to operate in a multiple-channel multiple-access environment and require each node to possess a tunable transmitter and a fixed (or slow tunable) receiver. Semi-markov analytic models are developed to investigate the performance of the two protocols. The analytic models are validated through simulation and performance is evaluated in terms of network throughput and packet delay with variations in system parameters.