Spectrum variable colorless, directionless and contentionless multi-degree ROADM node

摘要

The current fixed grid WDM system and ROADM node cannot provide optimum spectrum utilization and flexibility in metro networks. A solution is a flexible WDM network that can allocate optical spectrum and provision connections dynamically. In this paper, we propose and experimentally demonstrate a colorless, directionless and contentionless multi-degree ROADM node with flexible spectrum configuration for such network. Experiment results show that inter-degree cross-connect and colorless, directionless add/drop operation on spectrum variable WDM signals can be achieved without incurring wavelength blocking in the node. This ROADM node enables spectrum efficient and cost efficient switching compared to fixed grid ROADM nodes.