Optical switch fabric with redundancy
US7248760B1 · kind B1 · utility
Assignee
Inventors
Key dates
| Filing date | Mar 15, 2005 |
| Grant date | Jul 24, 2007 |
| Priority date | — |
| Expiry date | Mar 15, 2025 |
Classification
- Technology area (CPC H)Electricity
- CPC primaryH04Q2011/0083
- WIPO fieldTelecommunications
- WIPO sectorElectrical engineering
Abstract
An optical switch fabric with an input stage, an output stage, and a center stage coupled in a cascaded manner. The center stage includes (1) a minimum number of center switches greater than one that cause the optical switch fabric to be strict-sense nonblocking and (2) at least one additional center switch to provide redundancy for the optical switch fabric. A module is described that includes optical input and output switches coupled to an optical center stage of an optical switch fabric. The module includes an interior cavity that contains free space beams from both the optical input switch and the optical output switch. A method is described for reconfiguring a redundant optical switch into a multilevel optical switch without interrupting operation of the signals carried by the optical switch by adding additional switch components and reconfiguring the fiber interconnection between switch elements.
Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.