This work deals with the problem of interconnecting many highspeed terminal users via an optical local area network (LAN). We take advantage of space division multiplexing (SDM) to provide point-to-point connectivity. As a result, simple light sources and receivers are all that is required. The call setup between a source and a destination is based on the broadcasting of a short address packet or “flooding” which is a simple topology independent routing method and which alleviates the need to have intelligent nodes (cross points). A simple protocol is used to establish an end-to-end path using flooding. Once a source/destination path is established, the actual call starts. The established path is not interrupted by other call setup flooding attempts and/or other calls. Our performance analysis for a simple tree network indicates that a capacity of 66 percent can be achieved at reasonable average blocking delays. The network users can each access full electronics speed and the total throughput of the network is a multiple of full electronics speed. The concurrency is achieved via space division multiplexing.
All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes
- Computer Networks and Communications
- Electrical and Electronic Engineering