2008 Volume E91.B Issue 7 Pages 2145-2151
A dynamic routing and wavelength assignment (RWA) algorithm encompassing physical impairment due to Four-Wave Mixing (FWM) is proposed, assuming conventional On-Off-Keying (OOK) modulation format. The FWM effect is one of the most severe physical impairments to be considered for the future photonic networks since the accumulation of FWM crosstalk causes a fatal degradation in the wavelength-routed optical network performance. A novel cost function is introduced based upon an impairment-constraint-based routing (ICBR) approach, taking into account the network utilization resources and the physical impairment due to FWM crosstalk. Simulations results show that the proposed algorithm leads to a more realistic system performance compared to those of related approaches of dynamic RWA that fail to consider physical impairments into the routing scheme.