Test bed specifications. The testbed to be used for this demonstrator scenario is being established at DTU and will comprise a number of key components described below: - Fast optical switch The fast optical switch used in this scenario is intended to be the 4x4 switch made by Venture Photonics within the COSIGN project. The switch will act as a TDM circuit switch manipulating the time slots used to establish connections with sub-wavelength granularity. The electrical driver and high-speed control circuit for the switch is developed by DTU while the agent software and SDN controller plugin is developed by UNIVBRIS. The whole switch system comprising the optical switch, drivers and controller is compatible with OF and work is ongoing to make it compatible with ODL Lithium. Given that the Venture switch remains under development all initial experiments [5] done in preparation for this demonstrator have been carried out using alternate optical switching technologies. Thus far, LN and PLZT based switches have been used as substitute for the Venture switch. These switch types have different properties compared to the Venture switch, but for laboratory demonstration purposes they can be made functionally equivalent. In case of the LN switch polarization control is required and in both cases optical amplification must be applied to achieve lossless operation which is one of the attractive prospects of the Venture switch. As a third alternative an SOA based switch developed in the LIGHTNESS project for optical packet switching could be modified to serve the purpose of optical TDM circuit switch in COSIGN. Work on this demonstrator scenario can thus continue and if necessary be concluded while the Venture switch is being realized. - Fiber switch for MCF A proof-of-concept switch based on Xxxxxxx’ switching technology but supporting switching all cores in a MCF is being developed in a collaboration between UNISOUTH and Xxxxxxx. This switch or its functional equivalent will be incorporated as the bottom switch layer in the hierarchical switching nodes. - Core switch for MCF An integrated silicon switch capable of coupling directly to individual cores of multicore fibers at the input and output will be used to connect a given fiber core at the input to a node to a chosen core of a MCF leaving that node. In this way connections can be established across cores in the network of MCFs. This device is being developed in the project SimcROADM at DTU and is made available to COSIGN where it is being...
