Energy Self-Sufficient Node With Integrated Lightpath Monitoring for Spectrum-Aware PON

A reconfigurable yet energy self-sufficient signal distribution node with extensive transmission and monitoring functionalities supporting physical-layer flexibility is presented and experimentally evaluated. Operation in three different modes of wavelength distribution is supported from the O- to the L-band and features coarse, dense wavelength, or power splitting. The node does not require a local power supply unit due to the use of optical energy transmission at a delivered optical feed of -10 dBm and can be, therefore, deployed in a fully passive optical network. The transmission performance has been verified for analogue radio-over-fiber connectivity. Negligible penalties have been experienced when inserting the node in a realistic access network scenario, thus evidencing the absence of severe crosstalk even in case of a large number of 43 simultaneously transmitted wavelength channels. Fast switching of 10-ms long burst packets is also supported by the node. Moreover, coarse spectral monitoring of lit channels has been integrated.