A dynamic wavelength allocation scheme with status information for fixed- and variable-length messages

We propose a new multiple access protocol to support both fixed- and variable-length messages, in a wavelength division multiple access (WDM) based local network using a passive star coupler. The proposed protocol is the dynamic wavelength allocation scheme based on a contention-based reservation protocol. In the proposed protocol, a whole message can be transmitted after the first reservation of the control channel is successfully completed. To reserve the subsequent slots, the status information is used, instead of the control channel. Moreover, the data channels are dynamically allocated to the nodes that win the reservation. Thus, the proposed protocol can reduce the probability of the control and data channel conflicts, and uses the same data channel while transmitting a whole message.