Power and dispersion constrained optimization of optical links with unequally-spaced repeater modules

The design optimization problem of optical component allocation for a point to point optical link is considered. A module that includes amplifiers and Dispersion Compensating Fiber (DCF) is utilized. Constraints of the problem that guarantee the feasibility of the search domain are analyzed. Constraints are defined to maintain and limit the power level of the signal and to control the accumulated signal dispersion generated along the link. The accumulated Amplified Spontaneous Emission (ASE) noise formulation of the extended model is analyzed. Based on the derivation, an algorithm is proposed to select the amplifiers and the DCFs so that the accumulated ASE noise along the link is minimized while the power and the dispersion are constrained. The proposed analysis and the algorithm simplify the process of finding the optimal configuration of point to point optical links and provide an optimized component allocation with an improved ASE noise performance. The optimal allocation found by our method, provides an ASE noise value that outperforms two experiments with 100,000 and 1,000,000 sample feasible allocations. The optimal solution is found by applying a very simple selection method and satisfies the problem constraints.