N101-030 TITLE: Lossless Non-Blocking Single-Mode Fiber Optic Wavelength Router

TECHNOLOGY AREAS: Air Platform, Ground/Sea Vehicles, Electronics

ACQUISITION PROGRAM: Joint Strike Fighter

RESTRICTION ON PERFORMANCE BY FOREIGN CITIZENS (i.e., those holding non-U.S. Passports): This topic is "ITAR Restricted." The information and materials provided pursuant to or resulting from this topic are restricted under the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR), 22 CFR Parts 120 - 130, which control the export of defense-related material and services, including the export of sensitive technical data. Foreign Citizens may perform work under an award resulting from this topic only if they hold the "Permanent Resident Card", or are designated as "Protected Individuals" as defined by 8 U.S.C. 1324b(a)(3). If a proposal for this topic contains participation by a foreign citizen who is not in one of the above two categories, the proposal will be rejected.

OBJECTIVE: Develop a scalable and virtual non-blocking avionics wavelength-division multiplexer (WDM) fiber optic local area network wavelength router.

DESCRIPTION: Fiber optic networks in aircraft are becoming a reality whereby fiber based backplane switch or ring fabrics serve as a basic foundation for high speed data intercommunication paths onboard aerospace platforms. A current practice is to overlay high speed fiber optic sub-networks and point-to-point links independently from lower speed copper-based electrical buses and other individual point-to-point electrical links in federated avionics architecture with associated size, weight, cooling, installation and cost penalties. Another approach, the integrated modular architecture (IMA), provides an improvement over the federated architecture by sharing computing resources while still giving proper spatial and temporal partitioning to ensure protection against fault propagation, but does not provide a fully-networked avionics architecture. This project seeks the use of forward-looking wavelength division multiplexing photonics technology such as tunable wavelength converters and lossless wavelength add/drop multiplexing filters to create a unified, protocol-independent WDM LAN wavelength router that supersedes current federated and IMA approaches by enabling a fully-networked integrated avionics architecture. Desirable features are packaging compactness (no greater than 500 in3), packaging ruggedness per MIL-STD-810F, minimal power consumption (no greater than 100 Watts), re-configurability, transparency, predictable latency (real time), resilience, scalability, reliability via integration, and built-in test in the harsh avionics environment.

Selection criteria for the router design should be based on characteristics of non-blocking WDM LAN architectures for transferring data and video information between distributed avionics sub-networks and subsystems (scalable between 8 and 16 sub-networks) onboard aerospace platforms. Design modeling should be applied to capture the optical node behavior of the router. Following node design and modeling and simulation, proof-of-concept hardware prototypes should be fabricated and tested against probable realistic integrated avionics sub-network integration architecture and data fusion implementations. Component selection criteria should maximize the use of digital photonic device and hybrid optoelectronic packaging integration to minimize size, weight and power consumption and maximize reliability and manufacturability.

PHASE I: Develop a bi-directional WDM LAN router concept and demonstrate via modeling and simulation. Prove baseline router topology and physical implementation concept.

PHASE II: Develop, build, test, and demonstrate a prototype router based on next generation digital avionics network traffic control and data transmission and reception requirements. Test and validate.

PHASE III: Ruggedize packaging and test router over the full avionics operational environment. Transition to the fleet.

PRIVATE SECTOR COMMERCIAL POTENTIAL/DUAL-USE APPLICATIONS: Could be used in commercial telecom central offices and datacom computer local area network sites to increase capacity and throughput.

REFERENCES:
1. Watkins, C.B. and Walter, R., "Transitioning from federated avionics architectures to integrated modular avionics," Proceedings IEEE/AIAA 26th Digital Avionics Systems Conference, pp. 2.A.1-1-2.A.1-10, 2007..

2. Jessop, C.N., Jenkins, R.B., and Voigt, R.J., "Routing in an optical network using wavelength conversion," IEEE Avionics Fiber Optics and Photonics Conference Proceedings, pp. 24-25, 2006.

3. Braun, S. and Xeujung, M.M., "Advanced optical network," IEEE Aerospace Conference, 2006.

4. Kumar, A., Sivakumar, M., Stringer-Blaschke, M.T. and McNair, J.Y., "Priority-based ring-hybrid WDM LANs for avionics," IEEE Avionics Fiber Optics and Photonics Conference Proceedings, pp. 58-59, 2007.

5. Jenkins, R.B and Voigt, R.J., "Demonstration of bidirectional add drop multiplexers and mixed signals in a DWDM mesh architecture," European Conference on Optical Communications (ECOC) Proceedings, 2008.

KEYWORDS: Avionics; Fiber Optics; Networks; Wavelength Division Multiplexer (WDM); Router; Optoelectronic Packaging

** TOPIC AUTHOR (TPOC) **

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