Dynamic routing, spatial channel, and spectrum assignment in spatial channel networks based on a granularity switching threshold

As the demand for data transmission continues to grow, it is expected that the single-carrier bit rate will reach 1.4 Tb/s, necessitating a 14 Tb/s optical interface for efficient traffic transmissions. In such scenarios, a single request could occupy the entire C-band, and therefore such a large request can be transmitted without being groomed with others, eliminating the need for wavelength cross-connect (WXC). The spatial channel network (SCN) architecture has been proposed to address this issue. In SCNs, there are two types of groomed space lanes (SLs): spatial bypass SLs, which enable end-to-end transmission without the need for WXCs, and spectrally groomed SLs, equipped with WXCs and guardbands (GBs) to integrate requests from different nodes for transmission. Because of this characteristic of the SCN, the traditional first fit algorithm cannot allocate SLs efficiently for these two distinct SLs. In this paper, we propose a dynamic routing, spatial channel, and spectrum assignment (RSCSA) algorithm that employs a granularity switching threshold to differentiate incoming requests with different SLs. The proposed algorithm allocates smaller requests to spectrally groomed SLs and larger requests to spatial bypass SLs. This approach not only maintains network flexibility but also ensures transmission efficiency. We have identified by simulation the most suitable granularity switching threshold for given networks and request matrices.