Patent ID: 6925257

Claim:
An optical router comprising: (a) an optical wavelength router having an input and output; (b) an input optical wavelength converter stage having an input and an output, said converter stage being tunable; (c) an output optical wavelength converter stage having an input and an output; (d) wherein said output of said input wavelength converter stage is connected to said input of said wavelength router, (e) wherein said input of said output wavelength converter stage is connected to said output of said wavelength router; (f) wherein said optical router is configured for contention resolution by time, space or wavelength domain switching, or a combination thereof, by tuning of said input optical wavelength converter stage; and (g) wherein optical signals remain in optical form throughout switching, forwarding and transport by said optical router; (h) a programmable data processor; and (i) programming executable on said data processor for resolving switching conflicts by carrying out the operations of: (i) receiving a data packet having an optical wavelength and a destination; (ii) determining the preferred path to the destination from a routing table; (iii) testing the packet to determine if the wavelength is available on the preferred path; (iv) routing the packet on the preferred path if the wavelength is available on the preferred path; (v) if the wavelength was not available on the preferred path, determining if the wavelength can be converted to a wavelength available on the preferred path; and (vi) if the wavelength can be converted to a wavelength available on the preferred path, converting the wavelength and routing the packet on the preferred path.