Architecture design and analysis of layered WDMA wide-area networks.

Wavelength Division Multiple Access (WDMA) networks are likely to play a key role in future telecommunication infrastructure. The research work is divided into two parts. In the first part, the design of WDMA ring ATM-based local-area network architectures and the photonic components, including optical Add-Drop Multiplexers for architectural implementation, are studied. Based in this, the physical constraints of these components on the overall network performance are explored. The emphasis is placed on gaining a theoretical understanding from the modeling of the random gain of cascaded optical amplifiers in WDMA ring ATM-based local-area networks with optical Add-Drop Multiplexers. With the advent of fiber optic LAN research, a major issue that has surfaced is the interconnection of optical LANs using fiber optic technology. In the second part of this thesis, the WDMA fiber ring ATM-based LANs proposed previously are taken as the basic building elements in the low layer of the proposed hierarchical three-layer all-optical wide-area network architecture. At the top layer, an ultra-high capacity photonic ATM switch based on ultra-short optical pulse time/frequency division and wavelength division multiplexing is proposed and studied as a part of the backbone wide-area lightwave network that interconnects the intermediate layer networks. (Abstract shortened by UMI.