Optimization of wide-sense nonblocking elastic optical switches

This paper considers the optimization of wide-sense non-blocking wavelength-space-wavelength switching fabrics for elastic optical networks. Recently, wide-sense non-blocking conditions for two types of switching fabrics, named WSW1 and WSW2, have been derived and proved. In this paper, we optimize these two architectures in terms of numbers of required switching elements. Switching fabric architectures of different capacities are investigated using the full search, i.e., for each architecture and capacity, all possible configurations are checked. The results clearly present the controversy between architectures on numbers of tunable wavelength converters and their conversion range, number of input fibers and number of required bandwidth-variable wavelength selective switches. The information provided by this research can help us understand the effect of different implementation parameters, and draw more general conclusions about the parameters of optimal switching fabrics.