Meta-Slot Schemes to Enhance Nonblocking Elastic Optical Switching Networks

Elastic optical networks will become essential in telecommunications, which will require a large and diverse transmission bandwidth. This technology uses frequency slot units (FSUs), a frequency range used by a data stream. This paper investigates nonblocking switching networks based on elastic optical network technology. Two switching network architectures reported in literature are investigated. For these networks, the paper proposes schemes that define meta-slots in the frequency domain. A meta-slot is defined as a frequency range covering one or more FSUs. The schemes utilizes meta-slots to decide which FSUs are used by a new connection. The paper theoretically derives new nonblocking conditions for when the proposed meta-slot schemes are applied to the investigated switching network architectures. In comparison with previous results, the nonblocking conditions under the proposed schemes require fewer FSUs, which reduces the cost and complexity of the switches.