Highly reliable and large-scale subsystem-modular optical cross-connect

To create reliable high-capacity photonic networks, we propose a novel optical cross-connect (OXC) architecture that offers failure resiliency and port scalability, simultaneously. The proposed OXC employs the subsystem-modular structure to attain the port scalability, where the use of 1xM wavelength selective switches (WSSs) or MxM WSSs is considered. Furthermore, by introducing an intra-node protection mechanism suited to each OXC architecture, our proposed scheme offers high reliability while retaining the port scalability. Through computer simulations, we evaluate the total number of WSSs needed in a network and the annual path downtime due to WSS failures. The proposed OXC architecture can drastically decrease the annual path downtime with just a small number of WSSs.