Traffic grooming for IP over WDM optical satellite networks

Optical networking techniques based on wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) ISLs and wavelength routing can allow bypass of the transit traffic significantly simplifying routing decisions and minimizing transmission delays. In IP over WDM optical satellite networks, the traffic demand of single users can be much lower than the capacity of an entire wavelength channel. Thus, efficient traffic grooming approaches that aggregate low-speed connections onto a high-capacity optical channel will significantly improve capacity utilization, reduce network cost and satellite mass. In this study, we apply different traffic grooming algorithms to create a lightpath virtual topology for the upper IP layer. We also investigate routing and wavelength assignment (RWA) algorithms for lightpath establishment in the optical layer. Results show that an algorithm with multi-hop grooming and waveplane-based RWA can not only significantly reduce the number of required wavelengths, but also ensure low end-to-end transmission delays of IP flows.