Native Ethernet Optical Switching for Deterministic Critical Networks

Abstract

In this paper we present a novel approach enabling the switching of native Ethernet frames directly in the optical domain without any buffering. This is possible for the first time in the optical domain thanks to our approach using the known Ethernet frames arrival times, to preconfigure the fast-optical switches to build a new optical path before arrival of the Ethernet packet. The technique is analysed and validated with an Ethernet frame analyser to demonstrate its feasibility.