Patent ID: 7684393

Claim:
A method for generating and transmitting data bursts, whose destinations nodes are next nodes, in an optical burst switching system, in which when transit bursts are generated at an originating node, burst control packets are transmitted to a destination node by way of a plurality of nodes and then transit data bursts are transmitted after a pre-defined constant offset time, the method comprising the steps of: (a) obtaining an arrival time of survived transit data bursts that were survived in competition to occupy an output channel among previous transit data bursts transmitted to the next node by way of the current node by using the pre-defined constant offset time in burst control packets for the survived transit data bursts; (b) checking whether an empty void among survived transit data bursts is present between the survived transit data bursts by using the obtained arrival time of the survived transit data bursts; and (c) generating a new data burst originating from the current node, inserting the newly generated data burst into the checked empty void, and transmitting the data burst whose destination node is the next node, wherein step (c) comprises the steps of: when the burst control packet for a next survived transit data burst arrives by a time corresponding to the end of a current survived transit data burst, inserting the newly generated data burst without a burst control packet into the checked empty void and transmitting the newly generated data burst whose destination node is the next node; and when the burst control packet for the next survived transit data burst does not arrive by the time corresponding to the end of the current survived transit data burst, inserting the newly generated data burst without a burst control packet into the checked empty void starting from the end of the current survived transit data burst, and transmitting the newly generated data burst whose destination node is the next node, with a maximum length of the newly generated data burst limited by the offset time of the current survived transit data burst.