OPTICAL MULTIPLE ACCESS TECHNIQUES FOR ON-BOARD ROUTING

TEMPORAL AND SPECTRAL CODE-DIVISION, MULTIPLE ACCESS (CDMA) TECHNOLOGIES HAVE IDEAL PROPERTIES FOR SATELLITE ON-BOARD ROUTING: THEY LEND THEMSELVES TO ASYNCHRONOUS BROADCAST MODES WITH NO OVERHEAD OR LATENCY. ALSO, WHEN THE NETWORK IS INITIALLY OVERDESIGNED (IN THE SENSE OF HAVING MORE CODESTHAN USERS), ITS EXCESS CAPACITY CAN BE USED FOR REDUNDANCY (RELIABILITY) OR FOR LIVE INSERTION OF NEW USERS WITHOUT A CHANGE OF SOFTWARE OR PROTOCOL. THE PROBLEM WITH TEMPORAL AND SPECTRAL CDMA IS THAT, FOR MANY USERS (>10) AND HIGH DATA RATES (>50 MB/S), COMPLEX, EXPENSIVE LASER SOURCES OF VERY SHORT PULSE WIDTH (10) AND HIGH DATA RATES (>50 MB/S), COMPLEX, EXPENSIVE LASER SOURCES OF VERY SHORT PULSE WIDTH (<<1 NS) ARE REQUIRED. LOGICAL ALTERNATIVES TO CDMA ARE TEMPORAL/SPATIAL HYBRIDS (PARALLEL BUS ANALOGS OF THE TEMPORAL CDMA) AND SONAR MATRICES. THESE ALTERNATIVES REDUCE THE COST AND COMPLEXITYOF THE ACTIVE COMPONENTS; AT THE SAME TIME, THEY INCREASE THE PASSIVE COMPONENTS IN THE PHOTONIC NETWORK. THIS PROJECT WILL EVALUATE TEMPORAL, SPECTRAL, AND HYBRID/SONAR MATRICES SCHEMES FOR SATELLITE ON-BOARD ROUTING. CRITERIA WILL INCLUDE USERS, DATA RATE, REDUNDANCY, LIVE INSERTION (NEW OR BACKUP USERS), COST, COMPLEXITY, AND COMPATIBILITY WITH RECONFIGURABILITY BY MEANS OF KNOWLEDGE-BASED SYSTEMS. THE END PRODUCT WILL BE SPECIFICATIONS AND DESIGNS FOR PHASE II.