Node architecture and protocol of a packet-switched dense WDMA metropolitan area network

This paper proposes a new node architecture and protocol for a wavelength division multiple access (WDMA) packet-switched metropolitan area network. The network operates on a dual-bus topology and the tunable-transmitter and fixed-receiver scheme is adopted to facilitate data multiaccess. The network protocol runs on a cycle mechanism and the cycle length can be adaptively changed according to the data traffic, thus provides high throughput. The photonic implementation of the proposed network architecture and network nodes is discussed and a new packet-signaling scheme is proposed to avoid data collision during multiaccess. An experimental demonstration is also presented to show its feasibility.