Experimental demonstration of composite-packet-switched WDM network

We propose and demonstrate experimentally a novel technique for packet switching on a ring network. We use the wavelength dimension to increase the transmission line rate and a novel packet-stacking technique to add/drop packets. Packet stacking is used for transport rate multiplication and for equal loading of wavelengths on the physical layer. Packet stacking, switching, and unstacking have been successfully demonstrated on a four-node hubbed ring network serving five source-destination pairs on four wavelengths. Each wavelength was running at 1-Gb/s bit rate.