WAVELENGTH DISTRIBUTED DATA INTERFACE FOR SHIPBOARD COMPARTMENT AREA NETWORKS

THE REQUIREMENTS OF THE NAVY FOR ITS NEXT GENERATION HIGH SPEED DATA TRANSPORT NETWORKS ARE RAPIDLY OUTSTRIPPING THE CAPABILITIES OF COAXIAL CABLES. FIBER OPTICS INHERENT ADVANTAGES ENABLE NEW NETWORK CONFIGURATIONS TO INTEGRATE MIXED MEDIA (VOICE, VIDEO, DATA, ETC.) WITH VARYING DATA RATES (KBITS/S TO GBITS/S) INTO A SINGLE NETWORK. IN ADDITION, WAVELENGTH DIVISION MULTIPLEXING (WDM) GIVES FUTURE EXPANDABILITY AND ADDED FEATURES SUCH AS ON-LINE NETWORK TESTING AND DATA SELECTION, SECURITY, AND SELECTIVITY. POC PROPOSES TO DEVELOP A COMPARTMENT AREA NETWORK (CAN) THAT IS BOTH COST EFFECTIVE AND MEETS THE PRESENT NEEDS OF THE NAVY. POC'S CONCEPT IS BASED ON COMBINING THE BEST ATTRIBUTES OF BOTH WDM AND SAFENET/FDDI INTO A UNIQUE NETWORK REFERRED TO AS WAVELENGTH DISTRIBUTED DATA INTERFACE (WDDI). EDM WILL BE UTILIZED TO INCREASE THE NETWORK PERFORMANCE AS THE REQUIREMENTS GROW WITHOUT MAKING COMPLEX CHANGES TO EXISTING NETWORK HARDWARE OR SOFTWARE. THIS IS ACCOMPLISHED BY COMBINING MANY OPTICAL INFORMATION CARRIERS ONTO A SINGLE FIBER IN A LOW LOSS MANNER. AN EXPLORATORY EIGHT-CHANNEL SINGLE-MODE WDDI SYSTEM WILL BE BUILT AND EVALUATED TO DEMONSTRATE THE FEASIBILITY OF THE CONCEPT AND ITS CAPABILITY FOR MIXED MEDIA, MIXED SOURCES, AND MIXED DATA RATES INFORMATION TRANSPORT.