US 12,225,333 B2
Optical communication system, monitoring device, and monitoring method
Hirotaka Ujikawa, Musashino (JP); Tomoya Hatano, Musashino (JP); Yuka Okamoto, Musashino (JP); and Sei Kou, Musashino (JP)
Assigned to NIPPON TELEGRAPH AND TELEPHONE CORPORATION, Tokyo (JP)
Appl. No. 18/024,857
Filed by NIPPON TELEGRAPH AND TELEPHONE CORPORATION, Tokyo (JP)
PCT Filed Sep. 11, 2020, PCT No. PCT/JP2020/034558
§ 371(c)(1), (2) Date Mar. 6, 2023,
PCT Pub. No. WO2022/054250, PCT Pub. Date Mar. 17, 2022.
Prior Publication US 2023/0362520 A1, Nov. 9, 2023
Int. Cl. H04Q 11/00 (2006.01); H04B 10/032 (2013.01); H04L 41/0677 (2022.01)
CPC H04Q 11/0067 (2013.01) [H04B 10/032 (2013.01); H04Q 11/0005 (2013.01); H04L 41/0677 (2013.01); H04Q 2011/0015 (2013.01); H04Q 2011/0081 (2013.01); H04Q 2011/0083 (2013.01); H04Q 2011/0092 (2013.01)] 8 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
1. An optical communication system comprising:
a looped path in which an active trunk fiber and a standby trunk fiber are connected in a loop;
a plurality of optical combining/splitting units provided on the active trunk fiber in series;
a plurality of slave devices connected to the plurality of optical combining/splitting units, respectively;
a master device connected to the looped path and configured to perform optical communication with each of the plurality of slave devices; and
a monitoring apparatus, wherein:
in a case where the active trunk fiber is normal, the standby trunk fiber is inactivated, and the active trunk fiber is used as a communication path of the optical communication;
in a case where a failure occurs in the active trunk fiber, the standby trunk fiber is activated, and the standby trunk fiber is also usable as the communication path of the optical communication;
each of the plurality of optical combining/splitting units includes
an optical fiber through which an optical signal passes,
an optical sensor configured to detect the optical signal passing through the optical fiber, and
a transmitter configured to determine whether or not there is an abnormality in the optical communication on the basis of a detection state of the optical signal and transmit an abnormality notification including identification information of the optical combining/splitting unit to the monitoring apparatus in a case where there is the abnormality in the optical communication; and
the monitoring apparatus includes
a memory configured to store connection relationship information indicating a connection relationship between the plurality of optical combining/splitting units along the active trunk fiber, and
a processor configured to, in a case where the processor receives the abnormality notification from at least one of the plurality of optical combining/splitting units, specify a failure position on the communication path on the basis of the identification information of each of the at least one optical combining/splitting unit that has transmitted the abnormality notification and the connection relationship information.