Delivery of broadband services to SubSaharan Africa via Nigerian communications satellite

Africa is the least wired continent in the world in terms of robust telecommunications infrastructure and systems to cater for its more than one billion people. African nations are mostly still in the early stages of Information Communications Technology (ICT) development as verified by the relatively low ICT Development Index (IDI) values of all countries in the African region. In developing nations, mobile broadband subscriptions and penetration between 2000-2009 was increasingly more popular than fixed broadband subscriptions. To achieve the goal of universal access, with rapid implementation of ICT infrastructure to complement the sparsely distributed terrestrial networks in the hinterlands and leveraging the adequate submarine cables along the African coastline, African nations and their stakeholders are promoting and implementing Communication Satellite systems, particularly in Nigeria, to help bridge the digital hiatus. This paper examines the effectiveness of communication satellites in delivering broadband-based services

A Machine Learning-based Framework for Predictive Maintenance of Semiconductor Laser for Optical Communication

Semiconductor lasers, one of the key components for optical communication systems, have been rapidly evolving to meet the requirements of next generation optical networks with respect to high speed, low power consumption, small form factor etc. However, these demands have brought severe challenges to the semiconductor laser reliability. Therefore, a great deal of attention has been devoted to improving it and thereby ensuring reliable transmission. In this paper, a predictive maintenance framework using machine learning techniques is proposed for real-time heath monitoring and prognosis of semiconductor laser and thus enhancing its reliability. The proposed approach is composed of three stages: i) real-time performance degradation prediction, ii) degradation detection, and iii) remaining useful life (RUL) prediction. First of all, an attention based gated recurrent unit (GRU) model is adopted for real-time prediction of performance degradation. Then, a convolutional autoencoder is used to detect the degradation or abnormal behavior of a laser, given the predicted degradation performance values. Once an abnormal state is detected, a RUL prediction model based on attention-based deep learning is utilized. Afterwards, the estimated RUL is input for decision making and maintenance planning. The proposed framework is validated using experimental data derived from accelerated aging tests conducted for semiconductor tunable lasers. The proposed approach achieves a very good degradation performance prediction capability with a small root mean square error (RMSE) of 0.01, a good anomaly detection accuracy of 94.24% and a better RUL estimation capability compared to the existing ML-based laser RUL prediction models.Comment: Published in Journal of Lightwave Technology (Volume: 40, Issue: 14, 15 July 2022

Label swapper device for spectral amplitude coded optical packet networks monolithically integrated on InP

This paper was published in OPTICS EXPRESS and is made available as an electronic reprint with the permission of OSA. The paper can be found at the following URL on the OSA website: http://dx.doi.org/10.1364/OE.19.013540. Systematic or multiple reproduction or distribution to multiple locations via electronic or other means is prohibited and is subject to penalties under lawIn this paper the design, fabrication and experimental characterization of an spectral amplitude coded (SAC) optical label swapper monolithically integrated on Indium Phosphide (InP) is presented. The device has a footprint of 4.8x1.5 mm 2 and is able to perform label swapping operations required in SAC at a speed of 155 Mbps. The device was manufactured in InP using a multiple purpose generic integration scheme. Compared to previous SAC label swapper demonstrations, using discrete component assembly, this label swapper chip operates two order of magnitudes faster. © 2011 Optical Society of America.The activities have been carried out in the framework of the Joint Research Activity (JRA) 'Active-phased Arrayed Devices' (WP 44) of the European Commission FP6 Network of Excellence ePIXnet (European Network of Excellence on Photonic Integrated Components and Circuits), Project Reference: 004525, http://www.epixnet.org/. This work has been partially funded through the Spanish Plan Nacional de I+D+i 2008-2011 project TEC2008-06145/TEC. It has also been partially supported by the Canadian Institute for Photonic Innovations. Devices are presently being fabricated through the InP Photonic Integration Platform JePPIX (coordinator D J Robbins), at the COBRA fab, http://www.jeppix.eu/Muñoz Muñoz, P.; Garcia-Olcina, R.; Habib, C.; Chen, LR.; Leijtens, XJM.; De Vries, T.; Robbins, D.... (2011). Label swapper device for spectral amplitude coded optical packet networks monolithically integrated on InP. Optics Express. 19(14):13540-13550. https://doi.org/10.1364/OE.19.013540S13540135501914Yoo, S. J. B. (2006). Optical Packet and Burst Switching Technologies for the Future Photonic Internet. Journal of Lightwave Technology, 24(12), 4468-4492. doi:10.1109/jlt.2006.886060Blumenthal, D. J., Olsson, B.-E., Rossi, G., Dimmick, T. E., Rau, L., Masanovic, M., … Barton, J. (2000). All-optical label swapping networks and technologies. Journal of Lightwave Technology, 18(12), 2058-2075. doi:10.1109/50.908817Srivatsa, A., d. Waardt, H., Hill, M. T., Khoe, G. D., & Dorren, H. J. S. (2001). All-optical serial header processing based on two-pulse correlation. Electronics Letters, 37(4), 234. doi:10.1049/el:20010178Gordon, R. E., & Chen, L. R. (2006). Demonstration of all-photonic spectral label-switching for optical MPLS networks. IEEE Photonics Technology Letters, 18(4), 586-588. doi:10.1109/lpt.2006.870188Habib, C., Baby, V., Chen, L. R., Delisle-Simard, A., & LaRochelle, S. (2008). All-Optical Swapping of Spectral Amplitude Code Labels Using Nonlinear Media and Semiconductor Fiber Ring Lasers. IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Quantum Electronics, 14(3), 879-888. doi:10.1109/jstqe.2008.918047Cole, C., Huebner, B., & Johnson, J. (2009). Photonic integration for high-volume, low-cost applications. IEEE Communications Magazine, 47(3), S16-S22. doi:10.1109/mcom.2009.4804385Calabretta, N., Jung, H.-D., Llorente, J. H., Tangdiongga, E., Koonen, T. A. M. J., & Dorren, H. J. S. (2009). All-Optical Label Swapping of Scalable In-Band Address Labels and 160-Gb/s Data Packets. Journal of Lightwave Technology, 27(3), 214-223. doi:10.1109/jlt.2008.2009319Smit, M. K., & Van Dam, C. (1996). PHASAR-based WDM-devices: Principles, design and applications. IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Quantum Electronics, 2(2), 236-250. doi:10.1109/2944.577370Eisenstein, G. (1989). Semiconductor optical amplifiers. IEEE Circuits and Devices Magazine, 5(4), 25-30. doi:10.1109/101.29899Munoz, P., Pastor, D., & Capmany, J. (2002). Modeling and design of arrayed waveguide gratings. Journal of Lightwave Technology, 20(4), 661-674. doi:10.1109/50.996587Soldano, L. B., & Pennings, E. C. M. (1995). Optical multi-mode interference devices based on self-imaging: principles and applications. Journal of Lightwave Technology, 13(4), 615-627. doi:10.1109/50.372474Zilkie, A. J., Meier, J., Mojahedi, M., Poole, P. J., Barrios, P., Poitras, D., … Aitchison, J. S. (2007). Carrier Dynamics of Quantum-Dot, Quantum-Dash, and Quantum-Well Semiconductor Optical Amplifiers Operating at 1.55 $\mu{\hbox {m}}$. IEEE Journal of Quantum Electronics, 43(11), 982-991. doi:10.1109/jqe.2007.90447

Optical network technologies for future digital cinema

Digital technology has transformed the information flow and support infrastructure for numerous application domains, such as cellular communications. Cinematography, traditionally, a film based medium, has embraced digital technology leading to innovative transformations in its work flow. Digital cinema supports transmission of high resolution content enabled by the latest advancements in optical communications and video compression. In this paper we provide a survey of the optical network technologies for supporting this bandwidth intensive traffic class. We also highlight the significance and benefits of the state of the art in optical technologies that support the digital cinema work flow

A stateless opportunistic routing protocol for underwater sensor networks

Routing packets in Underwater Sensor Networks (UWSNs) face different challenges, the most notable of which is perhaps how to deal with void communication areas. While this issue is not addressed in some underwater routing protocols, there exist some partially state-full protocols which can guarantee the delivery of packets using excessive communication overhead. However, there is no fully stateless underwater routing protocol, to the best of our knowledge, which can detect and bypass trapped nodes. A trapped node is a node which only leads packets to arrive finally at a void node. In this paper, we propose a Stateless Opportunistic Routing Protocol (SORP), in which the void and trapped nodes are locally detected in the different area of network topology to be excluded during the routing phase using a passive participation approach. SORP also uses a novel scheme to employ an adaptive forwarding area which can be resized and replaced according to the local density and placement of the candidate forwarding nodes to enhance the energy efficiency and reliability. We also make a theoretical analysis on the routing performance in case of considering the shadow zone and variable propagation delays. The results of our extensive simulation study indicate that SORP outperforms other protocols regarding the routing performance metrics

Open-Source Telemedicine Platform for Wireless Medical Video Communication

An m-health system for real-time wireless communication of medical video based on open-source software is presented. The objective is to deliver a low-cost telemedicine platform which will allow for reliable remote diagnosis m-health applications such as emergency incidents, mass population screening, and medical education purposes. The performance of the proposed system is demonstrated using five atherosclerotic plaque ultrasound videos. The videos are encoded at the clinically acquired resolution, in addition to lower, QCIF, and CIF resolutions, at different bitrates, and four different encoding structures. Commercially available wireless local area network (WLAN) and 3.5G high-speed packet access (HSPA) wireless channels are used to validate the developed platform. Objective video quality assessment is based on PSNR ratings, following calibration using the variable frame delay (VFD) algorithm that removes temporal mismatch between original and received videos. Clinical evaluation is based on atherosclerotic plaque ultrasound video assessment protocol. Experimental results show that adequate diagnostic quality wireless medical video communications are realized using the designed telemedicine platform. HSPA cellular networks provide for ultrasound video transmission at the acquired resolution, while VFD algorithm utilization bridges objective and subjective ratings