AUTOMATED INSTALLATION AND RECONFIGURATION OF FIBER OPTIC AND COPPER CABLES IN LARGE SCALE DATA CENTERS

摘要

Apparatus and methods are employed to install fiber optic cables in a data center facility using one or more cable dispensing robots that dispense fiber optic cable that is pre-spooled on a cable cartridge (20), by programmatically unspooling the cable from the cable cartridge and paying the cable out along a potentially transverse oscillatory path (e.g. sinusoidal curve) as the robot (19) moves down a cable tray network that is arranged adjacent and above large numbers of equipment bays (10). A controller (36) accesses a database (34) which stores the state of all cables within the cable tray network. The database (34) further stores information regarding the availability of cable cartridges (20-2) of standard cable lengths, which are potentially stored within a cable cassette loading/unloading system. The controller (36) receives instructions on where and how to spatially deploy a fiber optic interconnect cable within the tray network of the data center facility.