Resilient Optical Fiber Ladder Network With OADMs to Multiplex Sensors: Binary-State Connectivity Analysis

A novel resilient optical fiber ladder network to multiplex an array of sensors is simulated. The sensors, which can be of many types, are uniquely identified by wavelength-division multiplexing, where channel selection is performed by optical add-drop multiplexers (OADMs). The simulation is a “binary state connectivity analysis.” It predicts that the network: 1) recovers full service after the failure of any one of its interconnecting elements and 2) automatically identifies the affected element by “self-diagnosis.” All combinations of double failures are also explored. The network can recover all, or all but one, channels after nearly every double failure. Moreover, self-diagnosis identifies many of the failure pairs without ambiguity. Even when unique identification of double failure sites is not possible, self-diagnosis provides valuable clues to their whereabouts. Two network protection mechanisms (to recover operation after double failures) and two cabling configurations are critically compared. The network's performance is favorably contrasted with that of previously reported resilient ladder topologies, especially with respect to its tolerance of double failures.