Sharing tunable wavelength converters in AWG-based IP optical switching nodes

This paper deals with the design of an optical packet switch architecture adopting an arrayed waveguide grating device for packet routing. Due to the high cost of optical components, the node structure proposed here is equipped with a pool of tunable wavelength converters fully shared among all input channels. An analytical model is developed that allows us to evaluate the packet loss performance of a bufferless version of such structure. The model accuracy is assessed by means of computer simulation.