Optical shared protection ring system

We propose, develop, and demonstrate an optical shared protection ring (OSPR), an optical layer protection designed to restore service within less than 50 msec from the onset of a failure. The OSPR utilizes a small optical switch fabric to reroute optical data channels when a protection event is detected. Various types of optical switch technologies are discussed and evaluated, and novel methods of optical fault monitoring and failure communication for the realization of such a self-healing optical network are discussed.