Wavelength assignment for all-to-all broadcast in WDM optical linear array with limited drops

All-to-all broadcast is to disseminate a unique message from each node to every other node. This is a fundamental problem in multiprocessor systems and telecommunication networks that need to collect information about other nodes in the network regularly in order to manage network resources efficiently. In this paper, a novel wavelength assignment method is proposed to establish all-to-all broadcast in a linear array network. The network model is an all-optical network, in which a message from source node can be dropped (or split) only at a limited number of destination nodes along a light path due to power loss of dropping optical signals. The minimum number of wavelengths required to establish all-to-all broadcast is also derived for a linear array network. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.