Bit synchronisation for optical networks

Abstract: A submarine optical telecommunications system has two shore based transmitting stations whose signals are combined at a passive, submerged junction. Phase errors are caused by variations in transmission times to the junction. An error signal is generated at the first repeater after the junction. The error signal, which represents the phase errors, is transmitted to a shore station where it is used to adjust the sending phase. A surface acoustic wave filter tuned to half the frequency of the combined signal is the preferred way to generate the error signal.

Description: This invention relates to bit synchronisation in optical networks and especially to networks which are submerged in the ocean. It is utilised in conjunction with systems in which the signals take the form of pulses of radiation separated by intervals in which there is no radiation. Most submarine cables have only two terminal points, ie one at each end. However, the high capacity of optical systems makes it possible for a submarine cable, eg a transatlantic or transpacific cable, to serve a very large land area and it may be convenient to provide a plurality of terminal points connected by submerged optical cables to submerged optical junctions (which have a plurality of input fibres and one output fibre). In order to keep submerged equipment as simple as possible, it has been proposed that the junctions are all passive. That is the output is simply a concatenation of the various inputs with phase and amplitude relationships preserved. It is, therefore, important that input pulses should not coincide, ie it is important that phase relationships at the junction be correct. In one known system, EP-A-0131662 (Rodman et al) describes a synchronisation system for two-way digital transmission systems arranged in a star-type configuration and particularly suited to a terrestrial network. The problem addressed in the specification is that of compensating for time delays arising from transmitting information to remote stations located at various distances from a central station, and where such time delays are subject also to fluctuations arising from changes in environmental conditions such as temperature. The specification describes a system in which signals are transmitted from the central station continuously to the remote stations. Due to transmission delays the synchronising pulses transmitted by the central station arrive at the remote stations at different times. By internal control means these signals are then re-transmitted to the central station. The delays in transmission are then measured by a counter which is then used to determine the delay encountered by the transmitted pulse in travelling in one direction. The central station can then instruct the remote station to alter its transmission time by twice the measured delay. Once the remote station is in synchronisation the loop can be broken and another of the remote stations tackled in similar fashion. The transmitters in submarine cable systems may be widely separated geographically but, even in these circumstances, a fixed phase relationship could be established. However, the relationship at the junction involves the transmission times along the optical fibres to the junction. The fibres are subjected to the ambient temperatures of the sea and therefore the temperature varies, eg diurnal and seasonal variations. The refractive index, and hence the speed of transmission, is dependent on temperature. Thus phase relationships at a junction cannot be controlled only from the transmitters. In this invention the spacing uniformity is measured after a junction, eg at the first repeater after a junction, and error signals representing the mis-match are returned to a transmitter which adjusts its sending phase, eg by adjusting a phase delay, so as to reduce the error indicated by the signal. According to this invention there is provided an optical telecommunications system which comprises a first transmitter station (10); a second transmitter station (11), said second station including variable phase delay means (52) for adjusting the phase delay of its transmitted signals; a primary receiving station (17) connected by means of optical fibre cables (12, 13) to said first and second transmitter stations whereby the primary receiving station is adapted to receive independent, pulsed optical traffic-signals from said first and second transmitter stations; characterised in that said primary receiving station (17) includes error detecting means (40) responsive to the spacing of pulses in the traffic-signals to provide an error signal indicative of the non-uniformity of said traffic-signals; error signal transmission means (41) for transmitting said error signal to the second transmitter station via said optical cables; and in that said second transmitter station includes control means (53) adapted to receive said error signal, said control means being operatively connected to control said variable phase delay means (52) so as to minimise the phase error indicated by the received error signal. In the preferred embodiment there are two input fibres and one output fibre at a junction. The two input signals, ie one in each of the two input fibres, have the same bit rates. The bits in the output are interleaved because each input has a "mark" while the other has a "space". In this embodiment the error detector conveniently takes the form of a filter having a narrow pass band located at half the bit rate of the combined signal, ie at the bit rate of each of the two input signals. When the composite signal consists of uniformly spaced pulses the output of the filter is at a minimum. When the spacing becomes non-uniform the output of the filter rises. The output of the filter is returned to the transmitters, eg it is periodically converted into digital form and returned to the transmitters. One transmitter is designated as "fixed phase" and the other as "adjustable phase". The adjustable transmitter includes adjustable phase delay means for its signals. Thus the transmitter receives error signals indicating a phase error and the phase delay is adjusted to minimise the error signals. The invention will now be described by way of example with reference to the accompanying diagrammatic drawings in which: Figure 1 illustrates the invention as applied to a submarine network, including a submerged junction and a submerged repeater; Figure 2 illustrates idealised wave forms before and after the junction shown in Figure 1; Figure 3 illustrates an unevenly spaced wave form caused by phase errors; Figure 4 illustrates a repeater according to the invention; and Figure 5 illustrates a transmitter station according to the invention. The network shown in Figure 1 illustrates two land-based transmitters, namely a "fixed phase" station 10 and an "adjustable phase" station 11 connected via submerged optical fibres 12 and 13 to a junction 14. The junction 14 is connected to a land-based receiver 15 by a fibre 16. It is to be understood that the fibres 12, 13, 16 are comprised in cables (not shown). The system also includes repeaters at suitable distances, eg about 50 - 100 miles, but only one of these is shown in Figure 1. This is primary repeater 17 which is the first repeater after junction 14. Repeater 17 comprises monitoring equipment which is utilised to control the phase at the adjustable station 11; these are the major features of the invention and they will be described below. The wave form is retimed at a repeater and it is important that the phase errors be measured before any retiming takes place. The signals in optical fibres 12 and 13 are return-to-zero signals which take the form of pulses of radiation separated by intervals when no radiation is present. The standard intervals are the same length as the pulses. The junction 14 is an optical directional coupler. The output in fibre 16 is a non-return-to-zero signal which is the sum of the input signals. The timing relationships are preserved. Figure 2 shows idealised signal timings. Trace 12 illustrates the pulses arriving from "fixed phase" station 10 on fibre 12; trace 13 represents the pulses arriving from "adjustable phase" station 11 on fibre 13. The synchronisation of the variable station 11 is adjusted so that, in perfect operation, the two trains are perfectly out of phase. Thus the signal in the output fibre 16 is as shown in trace 16. However, because the transition times of the signals are not constant, the combined signal sometimes becomes uneven as illustrated in Figure 3. The unevenness is due to variations in both paths 12 and 13. Although both stations 10 and 11 contribute to the unevenness, only one station, ie 11, includes means of adjustment to keep the pulses evenly spaced (as shown in Trace 16). The arrangements for correcting the spacing are distributed between repeater 17 and station 11. Most of the repeater is conventional. It comprises, as shown in Figure 4, a detector circuit 40 which receives light signals from fibre 16, converts them to electrical signals, amplifies and shapes them. The output of the repeater is provided by laser circuit 41 which is adapted to provide signals conforming to system specification. Laser circuit 41 is controlled by discriminator 42 which receives signals from detector circuit 40 and a clock signal from filter 43. This is a conventional arrangement which is adapted to regenerate a new signal which replicates the input signal. Filter 43 is a narrow band pass filter, eg a surface acoustic wave filter, tuned to the frequency equivalent to the bit rate of the combined signal. As has been mentioned above, a cable usually comprises a plurality of fibres and, therefore, a repeater contains a plurality of circuits as described, ie one for each fibre. In addition the repeater comprises a common supervisory circuit 46 which monitors the functions in the repeater and provides digital signals back to land on supervisory channel 47. (Channel 47 is usually some form of time division multiplex such that data items, and data for each fibre, can be separated on land. Channel 47 may be constituted as an extra optical fibre or as a multiplex with the traffic. In many optical submarine systems it is constituted as an electrical system using the coax formed by the king wire in the centre of the cable and the tubular power conductor which surrounds the fibres and the king wire.) Conventional connections from supervisory circuit 46 to the other circuits are not shown. In addition to the conventional components, the repeater 17 also comprises a plurality of detector filters 44, preferably surface acoustic wave filters. That is there is one filter 44 for each fibre so that the synchronisation of each fibre is individually monitored and thereby controlled. Each filter 44 has a narrow pass band at half the frequency of filter 43, ie the frequency defined in traces 12 and 13 of Figure 2. The power (or some other equivalent parameter, eg amplitude) of the output of filter 43 is digitised in A/D converter 45 and passed to supervisory circuit 46 where it is passed to land via supervisory channel 47. When the interlace is perfect there should be no output from filter 44 (but there is usually a little noise). If the interlace becomes uneven, eg as shown in Figure 3, the power output of filter 44 increases and, therefore, larger values are returned to land on channel 47. It should be noticed that, in Figure 3, it is not possible to tell from which station the pulses originate. Thus the error signals specify only the magnitude of the error. The error signals do not indicate the direction of the error. The error signals (for all the fibres) are sent, via common supervisory channel 47, to transmitter 11 and relevant parts of this are shown in Figure 5. The major part of the station is represented by box 50 which controls an optical transmitting means, eg a laser 51, via a variable phase delay 52. The error signals, received via channel 47, are stored in a microprocessor 53. Since the signals do not indicate the direction of an error the microprocessor makes a small phase adjustment in a randomly selected direction, and it waits to ascertain the result of this alteration. If the error gets better the microprocessor makes a further change in the same direction to remove the error. If the error gets worse the second change is made in the opposite direction. Thus the station 11 can adjust its phase delay to keep the spacing uniform in fibre 16. In use, the transmitter 11 forms part of a telecommunications system and it receives its traffic from the system. There will be a system specification which defines the bit rate of both the system and transmitter 11. However, the transmitter 11 cannot control the system and, in particular, transmitter 11 cannot control the phase or timing of the traffic which it receives. The output of station 11 is timed so that its signals have the correct phase relationship at the repeater 17. Thus the timing of the output is controlled (indirectly) by fixed phase station 10 and transmitter 11 has to conform to two timing requirements neither of which it can control. It is, therefore, convenient to include a buffer store in transmitter 11. The buffer store is connected to receive and store the traffic as it comes. The buffer is also connected to provide traffic to the cable 13 under control of a clock (ie one clock for each fibre) which determines the instant at which each bit is transmitted. The phase corrections which have been mentioned above are achieved by adjustments to the phase of the clocks. Since good performance requires accurate adjustment of the phase at repeater 17, each individual adjustment of a clock is a very small portion of a bit period. Thus each clock adjustment makes only a slight difference to the buffer, ie a very small increase or decrease in the time for which traffic remains in the buffer. Over short periods of time, eg up to a few seconds, the input bit rate will be exactly matched to the output bit rate and the small clock adjustments described above have no effect on other parts of station 11 or on the input/output balance. For longer periods of time, eg hours or days, it is possible that the balance will not be exact. Thus over a period of one year the variations in transmission times may be of the order of about 500 bit-periods (for transmission rates of 600Mbits/sec over distances of a few hundred miles to the mode 14). Thus the cumulative effect of many adjustments can be expected to amount to 500 bit-periods (or +250 to -250 from a mean). It would probably be inconvenient to provide a buffer store large enough to cope with this variation. In general it is difficult to control the telecommunications system exactly to the specified bit rate so that discrepancies of similar size would be expected even without the variation in transmission times. Thus station 11 is an example of pleisiochronous operation and technology to correct the errors in pleisiochronous systems is well known. "Justification" in which non-essential bits are inserted and/or deleted as appropriate is an example of such a system. As described above, the clocks control the phase at the repeater 17 but the cumulative effect of many small adjustments may cause the amount of traffic stored in the buffer to become inconveniently high or low. The justification system inserts a bit when the content is too low and deletes a bit when the content is too high. Thus the content of the buffer remains at a convenient level in spite of substantial cumulative effects. (The clocks and buffer are not shown in any drawing). In a modified version (not illustrated) the direction of the correction is also determined. In this modification the amplitude of the signals in fibre 13 are kept at 99% to 95% of the amplitude of those in fibre 12. This assymetry causes a non-zero output even when the phase adjustment is perfect. The assymetry also makes it possible to derive a clock signal from the traffic signals and to measure a phase shift of the filter output against the derived clock signal. Thus error signals which include both magnitude and direction are obtained and this facilitates correction. There is a penalty in that the submerged equipment is more complex. It is possible to combine signals from more than two stations. Thus to combine signals from four stations two pairs are combined using two junctions each with a repeater as shown in Figure 4. The two systems are then combined using a third junction and repeater which sends its error signal to two land stations. It will be appreciated that when signals from several stations are to be combined it is necessary for the primary transmitters to use intervals which are much longer than the spaces. When there are four transmitters the intervals should be (at least) three times the pulses for interlace to be feasible.

Claims: An optical telecommunications system which comprises: - (a) a first transmitter station (10); (b) a second transmitter station (11), said second station including variable phase delay means (52) for adjusting the phase delay of its transmitted signals; (c) a primary receiving station (17) connected by means of optical fibre cables (12, 13) to said first and second transmitter stations whereby the primary receiving station is adapted to receive independent, pulsed optical traffic-signals from said first and second transmitter stations; characterised in that said primary receiving station (17) includes:- (d) error detecting means (40) responsive to the spacing of pulses in the traffic-signals to provide an error signal indicative of the non-uniformity of said traffic-signals; (e) error signal transmission means (41) for transmitting said error signal to the second transmitter station via said optical cables; and in that said second transmitter station includes: - (f) control means (53) adapted to receive said error signal, said control means being operatively connected to control said variable phase delay means (52) so as to minimise the phase error indicated by the received error signal. A system according to claim 1, wherein the fibre cables include a first input cable (12) connected to the first transmitter station (10), a second input cable (13) connected to the second transmitter station (11) and an output cable (16) connected to the primary receiving station (17), wherein the system includes a passive junction (14) at which the first and second input cables are connected to the output cable. A primary receiving station (17), suitable for use in networks as specified in claim 1, which receiving station comprises: - (i) means for receiving pulsed optical traffic signals (40) and converting them to electrical form; characterised by (ii) error detecting means (44) responsive to spacing irregularities in said electrical signals to provide an error signal indicative of such irregularities; (iii) transmission means (46) for transmitting the error signal produced by (ii). A receiving station (17) according to claim 3, wherein item (ii), takes the form of a filter (44) tuned to half the frequency of the traffic signal and an analogue to digital converter (45) for converting the output of the filter to digital form. A receiving station according to claim 4, wherein the filter (44) is a surface acoustic wave filter. A transmitter station (11) suitable for use in a network as defined in claim 1 which comprises: (i) optical transmitting means (51) suitable for transmitting traffic into an optical fibre; and (ii) an adjustable phase delay (52) for adjusting the phase of the output signals of (i); characterised by (iii) control means (53), adapted to receive phase error signals generated outside the transmitter station, said control means being operatively connected to (ii) for adjusting the phase delay to reduce phase errors indicated by a received signal. A transmitter station (11) according to claim 6, which comprises a plurality of optical transmitting means (51) for transmitting traffic into a plurality of optical fibres, each of said optical transmitting means having its own adjustable phase delay (52) for adjusting the phase of its output signals, wherein the control means (53) is adapted to receive phase error signals relating to all of said optical transmission means (51) and to separate said phase signals to control each of said phase delays by phase error data relating to its own transmitting means. An optical telecommunications system which comprises: - (a) a first land based transmitter station (10); (b) a second land based transmitter station (11), said second station including variable phase delay means (52,53) for adjusting the phase delays of its transmitted signals; (c) a primary submerged repeater (17) connected by means of a submerged optical fibre cable system (14,16) which includes a first input cable (12) connected to (a), a second input cable (13) connected to (b), an output cable (16) connected to said primary submerged repeater and a passive junction (14) at which the first and second input cables (12, 13) are connected to the output cable (16), whereby the submerged primary repeater (17) is adapted to receive independent pulsed optical traffic-signals from said first and second transmitter stations; characterised in that said primary submerged repeater (17) includes:- (d) error detecting means (40) responsive to the spacing of pulses in the traffic-signals to provide error signals indicative of the non-uniformity of said traffic-signals; (e) error signal transmission means (41) for transmitting said error signals to the second land based transmitting station via said submerged optical fibre cable system; and also wherein said second land based transmitting station includes:- (f) signal processing means (50) adapted to receive said error signals, said signal processing means being operatively connected to said variable phase delay means (52,53) so as to minimise the phase errors indicated by the received error signals.

Inventors: BLANK LUTZ C, LORD ANDREW, BLANK, LUTZ C., LORD, ANDREW
Applicants: BRITISH TELECOMM, BRITISH TELECOMMUNICATIONS PUBLIC LIMITED COMPANY
Application year: 1988
Main classification: H04J3
IPC codes: H04B10, H04L7, H04J3, H04L25