Modelling and characterisation of an asynchronous optical packet switch for direct IP over WDM

The prime objective of the EPSRC-funded OPSnet project is the design and demonstration of an asynchronous DWDM optical packet switch (OPS) capable of directly carrying IP packets over DWDM-based core networks at transport rates in the order of 100 Gb/s and above. To achieve such an objective demands a highly flexible and innovative core switch architecture. The operation and performance of such an architecture is the subject of this paper. The paper directly addresses the performance of the core OPS module and results obtained from simulation models show that the proposed asynchronous OPS architecture exhibits low latency and packet losses allied with relatively high throughput