1-4244-0236-0/06/$20.00 ©2006 IEEE Dispersion Optimised Impairment Constraint Based Routing and Wavelength Assignment Algorithms for All-Optical Networks

Current methods in the area of Impairment Constraint Based Routing Algorithms (ICBRA) lack the capabilities to support information regarding dispersion management. The inclination towards higher bit-rates and heterogeneous optical networks in the future challenges the popular assumption that chromatic dispersion (CD) is adequately compensated on a per-link basis. Recognising the importance of dispersion management, this paper proposes algorithms which apply metrics that contain dispersion information to both the routing and wavelength assignment sub-problems. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first attempt to include dispersion information within the wavelength assignment sub-problem. The newly proposed algorithm is named Dispersion Optimised Impairment Constraint-based RWA (DOIC). The performance is compared to existing routing and wavelength techniques under two scenarios: 40 Gb/s and mixed 10 Gb/s / 40 Gb/s services. Two physical impairments under investigation are Chromatic Dispersion (CD) and Optical Signal to Noise Ratio (OSNR)