Patent ID: 8565618

Claim:
An optical transmitter, comprising: a tunable signal source configured to emit a signal to an optical fiber system at a plurality of wavelengths, wherein the optical fiber system includes a multiplexer device having a plurality of ports corresponding to a plurality of wavelengths or a tunable filter configured to pass one of the plurality of wavelengths; a back scatter detector for measuring an amount of back scatter observed following injection of the signal to the optical fiber system; and control logic configured to: cause the tunable signal source to scan through a range of wavelengths; receive, from the back scatter detector, measured amounts of back scatter for each of the wavelengths in the range of wavelengths; identify a wavelength corresponding to a peak back scatter amount; determine a particular port on the multiplexer device or a setting for the tunable filter to which the optical transmitter is connected based on the identified wavelength; and automatically set the tunable signal source based on the identified wavelength.