Patent ID: 8023825

Claim:
A modular switching architecture for a node of a fiberoptic network having optical fibers carrying wavelength division multiplexed (WMD) signals to and from said node in a plurality of directions, said modular switching architecture comprising: a plurality of modular network wavelength routers interconnected to each other and to said optical fibers of said fiberoptic network configured to selectively pass WDM signals through said node from one optical fiber to another optical fiber, each of said modular network wavelength routers configured to either add selected WDM signals to an optical fiber carrying WDM signals from said node or to drop selected WDM signals from an optical fiber carrying WDM signals to said node; a plurality of modular add and modular drop device units, each modular add device unit configured to be connected to one of said modular network wavelength routers and configured to add selected WDM signals to an optical fiber carrying WDM signals from said node, said modular add device unit configured to add said selected WDM signals from a plurality of modular add device unit input ports to said one connected modular network wavelength router, and each modular drop device unit configured to be connected to one of said modular network wavelength routers and to drop selected WDM signals from an optical fiber carrying WDM signals to said node, said modular drop device unit further configured to split WDM signals dropped by said one connected modular network wavelength router to a plurality of modular drop device unit output ports; and a plurality of modular port units, each modular port unit having a transmitter portion configured to convert electrical signals into optical signals and a receiver portion configured to convert optical signals into electrical signals, said transmitter portion configured to be connected to modular add device unit input ports and said receiver portion configured to be connected to modular drop device unit output ports so that optical signals at any wavelength converted from electrical signals by said modular port unit can be selectively sent on an optical fiber away from said node in any network direction and optical signals at any wavelength on an optical fiber delivered to said node from any network direction can be selectively received and converted by said modular port unit, wherein each of said plurality of port units further comprises a first switch having an input port configured to be connected to said transmitter portion and a plurality of output ports, each output port configured to be connected to an input port of each of said plurality of modular add device units to selectively send optical signals from said node, and a second switch having an output port configured to be connected to said receiver portion and a plurality of input ports, each input port configured to be connected to an output port of each of said plurality of modular drop device units and to selectively receive optical signals at said node.