A Nested Noncooperative OSNR Game in Distributed WDM Optical Links

This paper develops a Nash game formulation for optical signal-to-noise ratio (OSNR) in distributed optical links. The starting point is a recent network OSNR model developed for optically amplified links whereby channel powers are adjusted independently only at transmitter sites. A more general case is considered here where channel powers are also adjustable at intermediary dynamic sites, specific to optical networks. For this inherent distributed configuration a nested Nash game is formulated towards minimizing channel OSNR degradation along the link. Existence and uniqueness of the Nash equilibrium solution is shown and a recursive procedure for constructing it is given. Based on this, an iterative algorithm that is distributed with respect to both channels and -spans is proposed.