Patent ID: 7486895

Claim:
A polarization mode dispersion (PMD) compensator, comprising: at least one polarization controller (PC), each PC including at least one waveplate (WP) responsively adjustable by a WP adjust signal, wherein each WP is adapted to alter a polarization state of an optical signal; a polarimeter for measuring Stokes vector of an optical signal provided by the at least one PC; and a controller for calculating a degree of polarization (DOP) from the Stokes vector and responsively adjusting a dithering step of at least one WP; wherein the dithering step of each WP is dynamically adjusted according to at least one of a feedback signal representing a power level of the optical signal provided by the at least one PC, dα=A(B−DOP), dα=A(B−DOP 2 ), or combinations thereof; and dα is a step size, ‘A’is a scaling factor and ‘B’ is a maximum DOP.