HMWC: A Pay-as-You-Grow High-Dimension Optical Cross-Connect (OXC) Based on MEMSs and WSSs

The Spanke-based optical cross-connect architecture (Spanke-OXC) faces challenges with scalability and upgradability. Therefore, it is crucial to explore ways to upgrade a Spanke-OXC in a “pay-as-you-grow” manner. In this paper, we propose a new high-dimension Clos-OXC architecture based on MEMS and WSS, referred to as the HMWC architecture, to upgrade the Spanke-OXC. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed architecture possesses the pay-as-you-grow feature and can significantly reduce system costs without compromising switching performance compared to a traditional Spanke-OXC of the same size.