Patent ID: 8837941

Claim:
An optical packet switching system comprising: an optical packet transmitter device including: a detection unit configured to detect destination information and predetermined priority information from a received client signal, a header generation unit configured to generate a header containing the destination information and the priority information, a header insertion unit configured to insert the header in the client signal so as to generate a packet signal, and an electrical/optical converter unit configured to convert the generated packet signal including the inserted header into an optical packet signal and output the optical packet signal to an optical transmission path; and an N-input×N-output optical packet switching device, wherein N is an integer equal to or greater than 2, the optical packet switching device including: N receiver units, each configured to receive an optical packet signal from different optical transmission paths, N branching units, each configured to branch the optical packet signal received by each of the N receiver units to N first branched optical packet signals and N second branched optical packet signals, an N-input×N-output optical switch unit configured to route one of the first branched optical packet signals, N analyzer units configured to analyze the header of the N second branched optical packet signals so as to detect the destination information and the priority information, and an output competition determination unit configured to check for temporal competition of N optical packet signals input to the N receiver units based on destination information and to determine whether each of the N optical packet signals should be transmitted or discarded based on priority information when there is competition.