Optical Network Control - Prof. L. Pavel

The optical network control lab is run by Prof. L. Pavel and her students, using a testbed as shown on the right, consisting of the following: optical transmission equipment (multiple wavelength laser light sources, optical amplifier, dynamic gain equalizer, and optical broadband noise source); optical test and measurement test equipment (optical spectrum analyzer, optical power meters, variable optical attenuators, and photonics test system mainframe); PC-based computer infrastructure and real-time Labview and Matlab software packages for algorithm development and interfacing with the instruments.

Thus the testbed has the flexibility of interfacing real-time optical performance measurement equipment with a computer-based system resulting in a dynamic optical transmission link.

The group investigates various research topics related to dynamic effects in optical devices and in optical communication link, some of which can be tested in the lab. Two M.A.Sc. students, Nem Stefanovic and Yong Taing, have developed extended nonlinear models for optical amplifiers, nonlinear control techniques and disturbance matched optimal H-infinity control, respectively. For more information on Nem's work and on Yong's works, see the references below.

David Langen, another M.A. Sc. student works on the theoretical problem of modeling and controlling distributed parameter Raman fiber amplifiers. Yan Pan, a Ph.D. student, is currently developing theoretical algorithms for optimization of optical network performance, based on game theory. For more information on Yan's work see the reference below.

The theoretical algorithms for optical network optimization have been simulated and tested in Matlab by Olivia Chan (fourth year Eng. Science thesis). A group of fourth year engineering students have built and set up a basic configuration of the experimental testbed, as well as the Labview software drivers needed for running a closed loop control algorithm of optical link. An experiment for optical power balancing was realized and tested (see pictures at the right), based on basic closed-loop link control, in preparation for implementation and testing of more complex algorithms.

Slideshow of Optical Laboratory Facilities

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For more information on this work, see the references below:

Nem Stefanovic, Lacra Pavel, "L₂ Nonlinear Control of EDFA System with Amplified Spontaneous Emission," IEEE Conference on Control Applications August 2005.
Yong Taing, Lacra Pavel, "Application of H_∞ Control for Pilot Tones in Erbium-doped Fiber Amplifiers IEEE Conference of Industrial Electronics Society, November 2005.
Nem Stefanovic, M.A.Sc. thesis 2005.
Yan Pan, Lacra Pavel, "OSNR Optimization in Optical Networks: Extension for Capacity Constraints," American Control Conference, Portland, OR, USA, June 2005.