RAPID FIBER OPTIC ALIGNMENT TECHNIQUES FOR OPTICAL SWITCHING

A method of aligning optical signals in a fiber optic switching device with one or two phase light modulators (PLMs) includes configuring the phase elements of the PLMs with first initial settings, to direct an optical signal from an input fiber to an output fiber. An initial position displacement of a center of the signal image from a center of the output fiber is estimated. Corrected settings for the phase elements are calculated so that when the corrected settings are applied to the phase elements, a corrected signal image of the optical signal has a corrected position displacement from the center of the output fiber that is less than the initial position displacement. A fiber optic switching device has processing circuitry and a memory component configured to execute steps of the method of aligning the optical signals.