Optimization of hardware complexity in benes-type WDM optical switching networks

In this paper, we propose a new Benes-Type wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) optical network with spacewavelength switching capability. Intuitively, adding wavelength switching capability to space Benes networks requires the use of additional hardware components (i.e., wavelength converters). However, in this paper, we show that a Benes network with full-permutation capability in both space and wavelength domains can be designed using a smaller number of hardware components but the same number of stages as that in a space-only Benes network. In addition, wavelength conversion in the proposed network occurs only between two pre-defined wavelengths, eliminating the need for any expensive wide-range wavelength converters. We show that, the proposed WDM-Benes network has a smaller hardware complexity compared to most existing Benes networks.