Patent ID: 8086106

Claim:
A WDM optical transmission system comprising: a transmission path through which wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) light containing a plurality of channels with different wavelengths is transmitted; at least one first node that is arranged on the transmission path, and that demultiplexes WDM light input from the transmission path into individual channels, and then performs a predetermined processing for each channel, and amplifies the WDM light with the multiplexed respective processed channels with an optical amplifier to be output to the transmission path; and at least one second node that is arranged on the transmission path, and that amplifies the WDM light input from the transmission path without demultiplexing it into individual channels, with an optical amplifier to be output to the transmission path, wherein: the first node and the second node each have: a light intensity monitor that monitors the intensity of the WDM light amplified by the optical amplifier within its own node; a gain control section that controls gain of the optical amplifier according to the monitoring results of the light intensity monitor, so that the total light intensity combining signal components and noise components per one channel of the WDM light output from its own node to the transmission path, becomes constant at a preliminarily set control target value; and a correction value calculation section that, based on the monitoring results of the light intensity monitor, finds the proportion of the signal light intensity and the noise light intensity of one channel of the WDM light, and corrects the control target value of the total light intensity to be used in the gain control section so that the signal light intensity of one channel becomes constant in all of the nodes; and the correction value calculation section determines whether its own node corresponds to either of the first node and the second node, and when it corresponds to the first node, it performs a correction of the control target value of the total light intensity according to a calculation expression with use of a noise cut ratio defined according to a filtering characteristic for when demultiplexing the WDM light into individual channels.