Patent ID: 8861967

Claim:
A reconfigurable optical add/drop multiplexer for use in a Coherent Optical Orthogonal Frequency-Division Multiplexing (CO-OFDM) network, including: an optical processing unit for receiving a first CO-OFDM optical signal containing a plurality of optical channels, processing the first optical signal to generate a second optical signal which is a part of the first optical signal, and outputting the second optical signal; a coherent detection unit for performing a coherent detection on the second optical signal so as to separate from the second optical signal an optical channel contained therein, and outputting the optical channel; and an optical coupler for coupling a CO-OFDM optical channel inputted from an add port of the reconfigurable optical add/drop multiplexer and optical signals from other nodes, and outputting the coupled optical signal to achieve adding of the optical channel, wherein the optical processing unit includes a bandwidth-variable wavelength selective switch for filtering the first optical signal and outputting the filtered first optical signal as the second optical signal, the second optical signal containing an optical channel which needs to be dropped in the plurality of optical channels, and optical channels contained in the second optical signal outputted from the wavelength selective switch being changed by adjusting a passband of the wavelength selective switch.