AUTOMATED INSTALLATION AND RECONFIGURATION OF FIBER OPTIC AND COPPER CABLES IN LARGE SCALE DATA CENTERS

Apparatus and methods are employed to install fiber optic cables in a data center facility using one or more cable dispensing robots that dispense fiber optic cable that is pre-spooled on a cable cartridge, by programmatically unspooling the cable from the cable cartridge and paying the cable out along a potentially transverse oscillatory path (e.g. sinusoidal curve) as the robot moves down a cable tray network that is arranged adjacent and above large numbers of equipment bays. A controller accesses a database which stores the state of the cables within the cable tray network. The database further stores information regarding availability of cable cartridges of standard cable lengths, which are potentially stored within a cable cassette loading/unloading system. The controller receives instructions on where and how to spatially deploy a fiber optic interconnect cable within the tray network of the data center facility.