Patent ID: 8170416
Filing Date: 2012-05-01
Classification: H04J,H04Q

Abstract:
1. An optical switching device for switching optical packets, the device comprising: an optical demultiplexer with 2 a switch fabric including optical gate elements to switch optical packets output from the optical demultiplexer by switch drive control; an optical multiplexer with 2 a scheduler to exercise control over an entire optical packet switching process; senders coupled to the input ports of the demultiplexing couplers to send an optical packet in accordance with instructions from the scheduler; and receivers coupled to the output ports of the multiplexing couplers to receive an optical packet after switching; wherein the scheduler has: a connection management table in which how the senders and the input ports of the demultiplexing couplers are coupled, how the receivers and the output ports of the multiplexing couplers are coupled, and a present state of use of switch routes are dynamically registered; an input-side collision management table in which an input-side collision group formed by considering input ports of a same demultiplexing coupler as one collision group and a priority assigned to each input port included in the input-side collision group are registered; and an output-side collision management table in which an output-side collision group formed by considering output ports of a same multiplexing coupler as one collision group and a priority assigned to each output port included in the output-side collision group are registered.