A Resilient Passive Optical Network Architecture Based on Dynamic Spatial Aggregation

The densification of optical access networks driven by 5G, 6G, and Fiber-to-the-Everything (FTTx) deployments is increasing the need for architectures that combine high capacity, energy efficiency, and carrier-grade reliability. In this paper, we propose a novel Passive Optical Network (PON) architecture that leverages dynamic spatial aggregation to enhance network resilience against Optical Line Terminal (OLT) port and feeder fiber failures. The proposed system exploits multiple spatial lanes—such as fibers in a multi-fiber system or cores in a multi-core fiber—and dynamically reconfigures the mapping between Optical Distribution Networks (ODNs) and active OLT ports in the event of a failure. This enables rapid service restoration without the need for fully duplicated resources. In addition to fault recovery, dynamic spatial aggregation can also be used under normal operation to consolidate traffic onto fewer active ports during low load conditions, achieving significant energy savings as demonstrated in our prior work. Overall, the proposed solution provides a cost-effective path toward resilient, sustainable, and future-proof access networks aligned with F5G and F6G visions.