This paper presents a novel “virtual fiber” network service that exploits wavebands. This service provides virtual direct tunnels that directly convey wavelength paths to connect customer facilities. To improve the resource utilization efficiency of the service, a network design algorithm is developed that can allow intermediate path grooming at limited nodes and can determine the best node location. Numerical experiments demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed service architecture.

This paper proposes new switch architectures for hierarchical optical path cross-connect (HOXC) systems. The architectures allow incremental expansion of system scale in terms of the number of input/output fiber ports, wavebands, and optical paths per waveband. These features assure the cost-effective introduction of HOXCs even at the outset when traffic volume is not so large. Furthermore the effectiveness of the proposed switch architectures is demonstrated in a comparison with single-layer OXCs (conventional OXCs). The results provide useful criteria for the introduction of HOXCs in terms of hardware scale.

For people with serious disability, it is most significant to be able to use the same communication methods, for instance a telephone and an electronic mail system (e-mail), as ordinary people do in order to get a normal life and communicate with other people for leading a social life. In particular, having communications access to an e-mail is a very effective method of communication that enables them to convey their intention to other people directly while at the same time keep their privacy. However, it takes them much time and effort to input an e-mail text on the computer. They also need much support by their attendants. From this point of view, we propose a multi-modal communication system that is composed of a voice recognizer, a pointing device, and a text composer. This system intend to improve the man-machine interface for people with physical disability. In this system, our voice recognition technology plays a key role in providing a good interface between disabled people and the personal computer. When generating e-mail contents, users access the database containing user keywords, and the guidance menu from which they select the appropriate word by voice. Our experimental results suggest that this communication system improves not only the time efficiency of text composition but also the readiness of disabled people to communicate with other people. In addition, our disabled subject on this paper is not able to move his body, legs and hands due to suffer from muscular dystrophy. And he is able to move only his fingers and speak command words with the assistance of a respirator.

We propose a new extension to reconfiguration algorithms used to address wavelength defragmentation to enhance the path accommodation efficiency in optical transparent wavelength division multiplexing networks. The proposed algorithm suppresses the number of fibers employed to search for a reconfigurable wavelength channel by combining routes between the target path and the existing path in a reconfigured wavelength channel. This paper targets three main phases in reconfiguration: i) the reconfiguration trigger; ii) redesign of the wavelength path; and iii) migrating the wavelength paths. The proposed and conventional algorithms are analyzed from the viewpoints of the number of fibers, accommodation rate and the number of migrating sequences. Numerical evaluations show that the number of fibers is suppressed by 9%, and that the accommodation efficiency is increased by approximately 5%-8% compared to when reconfiguration is not performed.

Multi-layer transport networks that utilize sub-lambda paths over a wavelength path have been shown to be effective in accommodating traffic with various levels of granularity. For different service requirements, a virtualized network was proposed where the infrastructure is virtually sliced to accommodate different levels of reliability. On the other hand, network reconfiguration is a promising candidate for quasi-dynamic and multi-granular traffic. Reconfiguration, however, incurs some risks such as service disruption and fluctuations in delay. There has not yet been any study on accommodating and reconfiguring paths according to different service classes in multi-layer transport networks. In this paper, we propose differentiated reconfiguration to address the trade-off relationship between accommodation efficiency and disruption risk in virtualized multi-layer transport networks that considers service classes defined as a combination of including or excluding a secondary path and allowing or not allowing reconfiguration. To implement the proposed network, we propose a multi-layer redundant path accommodation design and reconfiguration algorithm. A reliability evaluation algorithm is also introduced. Numerical evaluations show that when all classes are divided equally, equipment cost can be reduced approximately by 6%. The proposed reconfigurable networks are shown to be a cost effective solution that maintains reliability.

A novel resilient coarse granularity optical routing network architecture that adopts finely granular protection and finely granular add/drop is presented. The routing scheme defines optical pipes such that multiple optical paths can be carried by each pipe and can be dropped or added at any node on the route of a pipe. The routing scheme also makes it possible to enhance frequency utilization within pipes, by denser path packing in the frequency domain, as we recently verified. We develop a static network design algorithm that simultaneously realizes the independence of working and backup paths and pipe location optimization to efficiently carry these paths. The design algorithm first sequentially accommodates optical paths into the network, then tries to eliminate sparsely utilized fibers and iteratively optimizes frequency slot/wavelength assignment in each coarse granular pipe so as to limit the impairment caused by dropping the optical paths adjacent in the frequency domain. Numerical experiments elucidate that the number of fibers in a network can be reduced by up to 20% for 400Gbps channels without any modification in hardware.

Recently we proposed a new waveband MUX/DEMUX that uses two concatenated cyclic AWGs. We analyse and formulate connection arrangements of the waveguides connecting the two AWGs. The port utilization of the device is shown to be 100% with bi-directional input fibers.

To accelerate research on Beyond 5G (B5G) technologies in Japan, we propose an algorithm that designs mesh-type metropolitan area network (MAN) models based on a priori Japanese regional railway information, because ground-truth communication network information is unavailable. Instead, we use the information of regional railways, which is expected to express the necessary geometric structure of our metropolitan cities while remaining strongly correlated with their population densities and demographic variations. We provide an additional compression algorithm for use in reducing a small-scale network model from the original MAN model designed using the proposed algorithm. Two Tokyo MAN models are created, and we provide day and night variants for each while highlighting the number of passengers alighting/boarding at each station and the respective population densities. The validity of the proposed algorithm is verified through comparisons with the Japan Photonic Network model and another model designed using the communication network information, which is not ground-truth. Comparison results show that our proposed algorithm is effective for designing MAN models and that our result provides a valid Tokyo MAN model.

In this paper, we propose a heuristic planning method to efficiently accommodate dynamic multilayer path (MLP) demand in multilayer networks consisting of a Time Division Multiplexing (TDM) layer and a Wavelength Division Multiplexing (WDM) layer; the goal is to achieve the flexible accommodation of increasing capacity and diversifying path demands. In addition to the grooming of links at the TDM layer and the route and frequency slots for the elastic optical path to be established, MLP requires the selection of an appropriate operational mode, consisting of a combination of modulation formats and symbol rates supported by digital coherent transceivers. Our proposed MLP planning method defines a planning policy for each of these parameters and embeds the values calculated by combining these policies in an auxiliary graph, which allows the planning parameters to be calculated for MLP demand requirements in a single step. Simulations reveal that the choice of operational mode significantly reduces the blocking probability and demonstrate that the edge weights in the auxiliary graph allow MLP planning with characteristics tailored to MLP demand and network requirements. Furthermore, we quantitatively evaluate the impact of each planning policy on the MLP planning results.

The novel optical path routing architecture named flexible waveband routing networks is reviewed in this paper. The nodes adopt a two-stage path routing scheme where wavelength selective switches (WSSs) bundle optical paths and form a small number of path groups and then optical switches without wavelength selectivity route these groups to desired outputs. Substantial hardware scale reduction can be achieved as the scheme enables us to use small scale WSSs, and even more, share a WSS by multiple input cores/fibers through the use of spatially-joint-switching. Furthermore, path groups distributed over multiple bands can be switched by these optical switches and thus the adaptation to multi-band transmission is straightforward. Network-wide numerical simulations and transmission experiments that assume multi-band transmission demonstrate the validity of flexible waveband routing.

We propose a demodulation framework to extend the maximum distance of unrepeated transmission systems, where the simplest back propagation (BP), polarization and phase recovery, data arrangement for machine learning (ML), and symbol decision based on ML are rationally combined. The deterministic waveform distortion caused by fiber nonlinearity and chromatic dispersion is partially eliminated by BP whose calculation cost is minimized by adopting the single-step Fourier method in a pre-processing step. The non-deterministic waveform distortion, i.e., polarization and phase fluctuations, can be eliminated in a precise manner. Finally, the optimized ML model conducts the symbol decision under the influence of residual deterministic waveform distortion that cannot be cancelled by the simplest BP. Extensive numerical simulations confirm that a DP-16QAM signal can be transmitted over 240km of a standard single-mode fiber without optical repeaters. The maximum transmission distance is extended by 25km.

We propose an efficient network upgrade and expansion method that can make the most of the next generation channel resources to accommodate further increases in traffic. Semi-flexible grid configuration and two cost metrics are introduced to establish a regularity in frequency assignment and minimize disturbance in the upgrade process; both reduce the fragmentation in frequency assignment and the number of fibers necessary. Various investigations of different configurations elucidate that the number of fibers necessary is reduced about 10-15% for any combination of upgrade scenario, channel frequency bandwidth, and topology adopted.

This paper investigates the prospects and challenges of hierarchical optical path networks. The merits and issues of introducing higher order optical paths are elucidated. State of the art of the key enabling technologies are demonstrated including hierarchical optical cross-connect switch architectures, hierarchical optical path network design algorithms, a newly developed waveband filter, and waveband conversion technologies.

Link-level and node-level blocking in photonic networks has been intensively investigated for several decades and the C/D/C approach to OXCs/ROADMs is often emphasized. However, this understanding will have to change in the future large traffic environment. We herein elucidate that exploiting node-level blocking can yield cost-effective large-capacity wavelength routing networks in the near future. We analyze the impact of link-level and node-level blocking in terms of traffic demand and assess the fiber utilization and the amount of hardware needed to develop OXCs/ROADMs, where the necessary number of link fibers and that of WSSs are used as metrics. We clarify that the careful introduction of node-level blocking is the more effective direction in creating future cost effective networks; compared to C/D/C OXCs/ROADMs, it offers a more than 70% reduction in the number of WSSs while the fiber increment is less than ~2%.

A 1.5 V 8 mW BiCMOS video A/D converter has been developed by using a BiCMOS pumping comparator. Combining Bipolar high-speed and good-matching characteristics with CMOS switched capacitor techniques, this A/D converter is suitable for use in battery-operated multimedia terminals.

In this paper, we propose a projection based design of near perfect reconstruction QMF banks. An advantage of this method is that additional design specifications are easily implemented by defining new convex sets. To apply convex projection technique, the main difficulty is how to approximate the design specifications by some closed convex sets. In this paper, introducing a notion of Magnitude Product Space where a pair of magnitude responses of analysis filters is expressed as a point, we approximate design requirements of QMF banks by multiple closed convex sets in this space. The proposed method iteratively applies a convex projection technique, Hybrid Steepest Descent Method, to find a point corresponding to the optimal analysis filters at each stage, where the closed convex sets are dynamically improved. Design examples show that the proposed design method leads to significant improvement over conventional design methods.

HRTFs (head-related transfer functions) are available for sound field reproduction with spatial fidelity, since HRTFs involve the acoustic cues such as interaural time difference, interaural intensity difference and spectral cues that are used for the perception of the location of a sound image. Generally, FIR filters are used in the simulation of HRTFs. However, this method is not useful for a simply system, since the orders of the FIR filters are high. In this paper, we propose a method using IIR filter for simply realization of sound image localization. The HRTFs of a dummy-head were approximated by the following filters: (A) fourth to seventh-order IIR filters and (B) third-order IIR filters. In total, the HRTFs of 24 different directions on the horizontal plane were used as the target characteristics. Sound localization experiments for the direction and the elevation angle of a sound image were carried out for 3 subjects in a soundproof chamber. The binaural signal sounds using the HRTFs simulated by FIR filters and approximated by IIR filters (A) and (B) were reproduced via two loudspeakers, and sound image localization on the horizontal plane was realized. As the result of the experiments, the sound image localization using the HRTFs approximated by IIR filters (A) is the same accuracy as the case of using the FIR filters. This result shows that it is possible to create sound fields with binaural reproduction more simply.

In this paper, we present a novel iterative MPEG super-resolution method based on an embedded constraint version of Adaptive projected subgradient method [Yamada & Ogura 2003]. We propose an efficient operator that approximates convex projection onto a set characterizing framewise quantization, whereas a conventional method can only handle a convex projection defined for each DCT coefficient of a frame. By using the operator, the proposed method generates a sequence that efficiently approaches to a solution of super-resolution problem defined in terms of quantization error of MPEG compression.

This paper presents a fast and large-scale optical circuit-switch architecture for intra-datacenter applications that uses a combination of space switches and wavelength-routing switches are utilized. A 1,440 × 1,440 optical switch is designed with a fast-tunable laser, 8×8 delivery-and-coupling switch, and a 180×180 wavelength-routing switch. We test the bit-error-ratio characteristics of all ports of the wavelength-routing switch using 180-wavelength 10-Gbps signals in the full C-band. The worst switching time, 498 microseconds, is confirmed and all bit-error ratios are acceptable.

We propose an efficient network design algorithm that realizes shared protection. The algorithm iteratively improves the degree of wavelength resource usage and fiber utilization. To achieve this, we newly define two metrics to evaluate the degree of wavelength resource usage of a pair of working/backup paths and the fiber utilization efficiency. The proposed method iteratively redesigns groups of paths that are selected in the order determined by the metrics. A numerical analysis verifies that the proposed algorithm can substantially reduce the required wavelength resources and hence fiber cost. It is also verified that the computational complexity of the proposed algorithm is small enough to terminate within practicable time.