US 11,942,991 B2
Optical submarine branching apparatus, optical submarine cable system, switching method, non-transitory computer-readable medium
Ryota Abe, Tokyo (JP)
Assigned to NEC CORPORATION, Tokyo (JP)
Appl. No. 17/439,914
Filed by NEC Corporation, Tokyo (JP)
PCT Filed Nov. 12, 2019, PCT No. PCT/JP2019/044251
§ 371(c)(1), (2) Date Sep. 16, 2021,
PCT Pub. No. WO2020/194842, PCT Pub. Date Oct. 1, 2020.
Claims priority of application No. 2019-061901 (JP), filed on Mar. 27, 2019.
Prior Publication US 2022/0286203 A1, Sep. 8, 2022
Int. Cl. H04B 10/80 (2013.01); H04B 10/25 (2013.01); H04Q 11/00 (2006.01)
CPC H04B 10/25 (2013.01) [H04Q 11/0005 (2013.01); H04Q 2011/0037 (2013.01)] 15 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
1. An optical submarine branching apparatus comprising:
switching unit configured to connect to a plurality of first optical fiber transmission lines connecting to a first terminal station, a plurality of second optical fiber transmission lines connecting to a second terminal station, and a third optical fiber transmission line connecting to a third terminal station and to switch a transmission route of a wavelength-multiplexed optical signal; and
control unit configured to control switching of the transmission route by the switching unit,
wherein the switching unit is configured to connect each of the plurality of first optical fiber transmission lines to a preset one of the plurality of second optical fiber transmission lines and of switching any one of the plurality of first optical fiber transmission lines to connect to the third optical fiber transmission line,
wherein each optical fiber transmission line in the plurality of first optical fiber transmission lines, the plurality of second optical fiber transmission lines, and the third optical fiber transmission line includes a fiber pair comprising an optical fiber for optically transmitting information from the first terminal station side and an optical fiber for optically transmitting information to the first terminal station side, and
wherein the switching unit includes a configuration in which a first optical switch including an input path and two output paths and a second optical switch including two input paths and two output paths are connected in multi-stages, and the first optical switch and the second optical switch connected in the multi-stages each have a different one of the first optical fiber transmissions lines as an input.