Patent · US Expired

Method and system for controlling optical amplification in wavelength division multiplex optical transmission

US6212001A · kind A · utility

13Cited by
2References
20Claims
0Family size

Assignee

Inventors

Key dates

Filing dateJan 22, 1999
Grant dateApr 3, 2001
Priority date
Expiry dateJan 22, 2019

Classification

  • Technology area (CPC H)Electricity
  • CPC primaryH04J14/0221
  • WIPO fieldTelecommunications
  • WIPO sectorElectrical engineering

Abstract

The present invention relates generally to the field of optical transmission and particularly to a method and a system for controlling optical amplification in wavelength division multiplex optical transmission. WDM systems currently under development will have eighty or more channels, i.e., modulated optical signals with different wavelengths (known as Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing, DWDM). These DWDM systems are demanding optical amplifiers which, especially considering the cascadation of a plurality of optical amplifiers along the transmission path of the DWDM system, have only very limited tolerances in certain parameters. Among these parameters gain flatness and gain tilt are of special importance. The present invention discloses a method and a system which make use of auxiliary optical signals having a given power level which is equal for all auxiliary signals. Differences in the power levels of the auxiliary signals after optical amplification are used for the control of the optical amplifiers of the WDM system.

Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.