Optical Cross Connect (OXC). OXC consists of optical switch arrays, which mainly implement dynamic optical path management, optical network fault protection, and flexible addition of new services. The requirements of the optical cross-connect for switching mainly include low insertion loss, low crosstalk, low switching time, and non-blocking operation. At present, MEMS technology has entered the experimental stage in optical switching applications. Since it is transparent to wavelength, data rate, and signal format, it is hopeful to realize switching on the optical layer in the near future.
Use optical switch to realize automatic protection switching of the network. When the optical fiber breaks or the transmission fails, you can change the transmission path of the service through the optical switch to achieve protection of the service. Generally, this kind of protection switching can be realized only by a 1×2 port optical switch.
Realize network monitoring with 1×N optical switch. Multiple optical fibers are connected to an optical time domain reflectometer (OTDR) through a 1×N optical switch at the remote fiber test point, and all optical fibers are monitored through optical switch switching. Or insert a network analyzer to realize online online analysis.
Optical fiber communication device testing. During the testing process of optical devices, optical cables and subsystem products, you can use optical switches to test multiple devices at the same time, which simplifies testing and improves efficiency.
Optical add-drop multiplexer (OADM). It is mainly used in the ring-shaped metropolitan area network to realize the single wavelength and multiple wavelengths free from the optical path. The OADM realized by optical switch can control any wavelength up and down dynamically through software, which will increase the flexibility of network configuration.
