Jointly Inter-Core XT and Impairment Aware Lightpath Provisioning in Elastic Optical Networks

Space-division multiplexing-based elastic optical networks (SDM-EONs) enhance the fiber capacity. Inter-core crosstalk (XT) and intra-core physical layer impairments (PLIs) occur in the multi-core fiber and degrade the optical signal. An existing model separately considers inter-core XT and intra-core PLIs, and sets a single XT threshold to each modulation format. This can lead to an unacceptable lightpath due to signal degradation or the occurrence of spectrum inefficiency. This paper proposes a routing, modulation, spectrum, and core allocation (RMSCA) model, which jointly considers inter-core XT and intra-core PLIs for SDM-EONs. The proposed model sets multiple XT thresholds for each modulation format based on inter-core XT and intra-core PLIs. We present an optimization problem and formulate it as an integer linear programming (ILP) problem. We introduce a heuristic algorithm for a network where the ILP problem is not tractable. Numerical results observe that the proposed model improves the spectrum efficiency by setting multiple XT thresholds to each modulation format.