Design Considerations for a Slotted OTDM Ring-LAN

In this paper, two different node architectures for a high-speed packet-switched ring LAN based on the optical time-division multiplexing technique are proposed. Due to the incorporated low-speed packet headers the presented ring can be viewed as an optically (bit rate) transparent network. In both cases, the node can be implemented by using the current opto-electronic technology. Moreover, access protocols based on these proposed architectures are introduced employing the Slotted Ring scheme with destination release. Thereby, the specific processing delay requirements of the nodes are taken into account. Additionally, simulation results are shown for both configurations evaluating throughput and access delays as main performance measures. The paper reveals whether the deployment of additional (and expectably costly) OTDM multiplexers/demultiplexers at each ring node is really justified considering the system performance.