H - Electricity – 04 – B
Patent
H - Electricity
04
B
H04B 10/08 (2006.01) H04B 10/16 (2006.01) H04B 10/17 (2006.01) H04J 14/02 (2006.01)
Patent
CA 2155693
Monitoring of optical amplifiers is accomplished, in accordance with the invention, by an apparatus and method for detecting a power level of a tone modulated upon a signal input to the amplifier, detecting an output power level of the amplifier, and comparing the power level of the tone to the output power level of the amplifier to determine an indication of the performance of the amplifier. In illustrative embodiments of the invention, each of the individual channels within a multiplexed optical signal are modulated with a specific low-frequency tone. The modulating is performed at the transmission site of the optical signal, and the specific tone frequencies are chosen to be lower than the low-frequency cut-off of any other information encoded upon the optical signal. The channel power of each channel is determined after each stage of optical amplification in the network by measuring the power of its respective unique low-frequency tone using a low-cost monitor. The total optical output power of the optical amplifier is also measured by the monitor. The ratio between the tone power and the optical amplifier output power after the first stage of optical amplification in the network is compared to the tone power/output power ratio at each subsequent optical amplification stage. Changes between the first and subsequent tone power/output power ratios reflect changes in network performance. The changes in tone power/output power ratio are strongly correlated to actual changes in optical signal- to-noise ratio. Advantageously, such a monitor may be built-in to each optical amplifier in the network, and no complex calibration of any components in the network is needed. Since each optical amplifier has a dedicated monitor which determines the status of each channel, faults in the network may be readily and quickly located to a specific optical amplifier and a specific channel.
At&t Corp.
Kirby Eades Gale Baker
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