With the continuing growth in data traffic, networks will be strained in terms of both transport and processing requirements. Wavelength Division Multiplexing (WDM) has emerged as a dominant transport technology; by enabling simultaneous transmission on multiple wavelengths, WDM systems achieve transmission capacities in excess of a Terabit per second. However, electronically processing all of this traffic at network nodes presents a significant bottleneck.
The goal of this project is to alleviate the electronic bottleneck by developing an efficient network architecture in combination with dynamic network control algorithms that allow the network to effectively respond to changes in traffic and network conditions. The architecture employs a combination of electronic layer routing and WDM layer topology reconfiguration. Applying techniques from control of dynamical systems, this project develops joint reconfiguration and routing algorithms that maximize network throughput and improve delay performance.
The architectures and algorithms developed through this project enable the design of scalable networks at reduced cost. They also enable networks to autonomously self-configure in response to changes in traffic conditions to improve performance. The work done through this project is leading to new fundamental understanding of the performance limits of reconfigurable WDM networks and practical algorithms for achieving these limits.
The broader impacts of the proposed activity include the dissemination of the research results through journal and conference publications and the web; incorporation of new theory and algorithms developed through this work into a graduate classes at MIT; and training of graduate and undergraduate students.
