Wavelength Assignment and Routing in WDM Networks

With wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) several optical signals can be transferred in a single optical fiber [6] [7]. This technology allows more efficient use of the huge capacity of an optical fiber but also poses new network design and management problems, especially when wavelength conversion is not possible in the nodes. In this paper we consider the routing and wavelength assignment problem in such networks. Once routes are fixed the wavelength assignment is essentially a graph coloring problem. Several heuristic methods for coloring a given graph are studied. Also an iterative algorithm for finding a reasonably good routing and wavelength assignment is represented and tested with fully connected networks.