Research activities in PRL cover all major aspects of optical subsystems, systems and networks:
All areas share a common desire to see the application of advanced devices in photonic circuits, systems, and
networks and the modeling of modern photonic telecommunication networks.
Staff Projects
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| Title |
Architectures and System Technologies for Intelligent Photonic Packet Routers |
| Funding: |
AUSTRALIAN RESEARCH COUNCIL DISCOVERY PROJECTS |
| Manager: |
Thas NIRMALATHAS |
| Research Team: |
Christina LIM, Thomas CHAE, Thas NIRMALATHAS, Alan LEE |
Description:
The photonic packet switching in future all-optical IP centric networks can potentially provide the much needed bandwidth granularity and optimal data transport architectures. Through the adaptation of multi-protocol label switching (MPLS) compatible photonic label switching concepts, photonic packet routers can be realised. The objective of this project is to develop photonic packet header processing technologies and subsystem architectures suitable for intelligent photonic router implementations.
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| Title |
R&D Studies of WDM systems and networks in their applications to access networks |
| Funding: |
Industry Partner - TELSTRA RESEARCH LABORATORIES, TELSTRA |
| Manager: |
An Vu TRAN |
| Research Team: |
Thomas CHAE, Elaine WONG, Rod TUCKER |
Description:
Ethernet interface cards at data rates of 100 and 1000 Mb/s are expected to rapidly penetrate into the business and residential areas in the near future. The passive optical network (PON) is considered to be the best way to cost-effectively deliver such high-speed data to the customer. The objective of this project is to investigate the enabling technologies to transfer Ethernet frames between the central office and customer premises at 100 Mb/s and 1Gb/s.
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| Title |
R&D studies of WDM systems and Networks in their applications to core networks |
| Funding: |
Industry Partner - TELSTRA RESEARCH LABORATORIES, TELSTRA |
| Manager: |
An Vu TRAN |
| Research Team: |
Rod TUCKER, Sarah DODS, Yang Jing WEN, Sanjeewa Manik ATTYGALLE, Bo-Hun CHOI, Hai VU, Andrew ZALESKY, An Vu TRAN, Chris LECKIE |
Description:
WDM Core Networks: As the data rate of single channel in WDM core networks increases above 10 Gb/s, the network design and upgrade needs to look at a multitude of factors such as linear system issues, nonlinear system impairments and stochastic effects. In this project, we investigate the implementations of long-haul optical transmission systems, architecture and network management of WDM core networks and the enabling technologies.
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| Title |
Fibre to the premises - AUSTRALIAN PHOTONICS CRC Challenge Project 1 |
| Funding: |
Australian Photonics CRC |
| Manager: |
Christina LIM |
| Research Team: |
Christina LIM, Sanjeewa Manik ATTYGALLE, Elaine WONG, Bo-Hun CHOI, Thomas CHAE, Thas NIRMALATHAS |
Description:
With the standardisation of EPON almost coming to a completion, PON based network infrastructure has emerged as the most plausible vehicle to deliver broadband services using the fibre to the premises. This challenge project is focused on development of key photonic subsystem and system technologies required for future passive optical network infrastructure and aimed at the network architecture that has an evolutional upgrade path, and that can offer multiple value-added access network services such as LAN emulation and wireless network connectivity.
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| Title |
Signal Monitoring and Impairment Mitigation- Australian Photonics CRC Challenge Project 2 |
| Funding: |
Australian Photonics CRC |
| Manager: |
Elaine WONG |
| Research Team: |
Elaine WONG, Christina LIM, Sarah DODS, Yang Jing WEN, Thas NIRMALATHAS |
Description:
The emergence of optical networking for applications in core, metro and access networks has resulted in new challenges in provisioning, managing, restoring and fault localising the transparent paths of these networks. Compounding the issue is that the ever increasing signal reach in the optical domain has reduced the number of OEO conversions in the network, thus rendering current electronic based techniques that gauge the integrity of the optical signals traversing the network and the operational status of components and subsystems, ineffective. New technologies that monitor, evaluate the accumulation of impairments and offer strategies to dynamically mitigate or manage the deteriorating effects, must therefore be developed to realise a reliable optical network. The immediate objectives of this project are to:
- Investigate and develop systems and components that help monitor the integrity of the network elements and signals by combining optical interfaces and electronic processing technologies.
- Investigate and develop advanced modulation formats that are: resilient to fibre non-linear effects; has large dispersion tolerance; good transmission performance; and is simple and cheap to generate.
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| Title |
Optical Bus Network Architecture Based on E-CDMA for Optical Access Networks |
| Funding: |
Australian Photonics CRC, Omnibus Networks |
| Manager: |
Thas NIRMALATHAS |
| Research Team: |
Don HEWITT, Rod TUCKER |
Description:
By using electronic code-division multiplexed access (E-CDMA) as a multiple access protocol, a novel optical bus architecture involving single optical source and a cascade of special optical modulators have been developed. The objective of this project is to further investigate the system performance properties of a novel E-CDMA optical fibre bus architecture for access and local area networking applications.
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| Title |
Optical Networking |
| Funding: |
STI, Federation Fellwoship |
| Manager: |
Rod TUCKER |
| Research Team: |
Thomas CHAE, An Vu TRAN |
Description:
(Sorry, not available at present)
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| Title |
All-Optical and Opto-Electronic Recirculating Loop Experimental Testbed |
| Funding: |
Australian Research Council, Australian Photonics CRC and The University of Melbourne |
| Manager: |
Yang Jing WEN |
| Research Team: |
Yang Jing WEN, Bo-hun Adam CHOI, Sarah DODS, Thas NIRMALATHAS |
Description:
To carry out optical long-haul transmission experiments inside a laboratory environment as well as to investigate the effects of accumulation of optical impairments in such long transmissions, all-optical and opto-electronic recirculating loops are required. Our aim is to develop a fully-functional recirculating loop operating at 10 Gb/s which can be easily configured as either all-optical or opto-electronic arrangement. We have completed the implementation of 8 channel 10 Gb/s loop We aim to upgrade the loop to operate at 40 Gb/s in the near future.
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Postgraduate Projects
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| Title |
Technologies and Architectures for WDM Access Networks |
| Funding: |
Australian Photonics CRC |
| Manager: |
Thas NIRMALATHAS |
| Research Team: |
Nishaanthan NADARAJAH (PhD Candidate), Elaine WONG |
Description:
Currently passive optical networks based on Ethernet and ATM signal transport are being investigated for deployment in broadband customer access network applications. Future network upgrades will be focused on technologies for improving the efficiency of internet packets by taking advantage of capacity utilisation in both wavelength and time domain in a multi-user access environment. This project aims at developing new technologies to provide WDM packet based optical access network interfaces and network evolution strategies for futute optical access network infrastructure developments.
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| Title |
All-Optical Clock Recovery |
| Funding: |
Australian Photonics CRC |
| Manager: |
Thas NIRMALATHAS |
| Research Team: |
Yingmin YANG (PhD Candidate), Cishen ZHANG, Yang Jing WEN |
Description:
The development of ultra high capacity WDM/OTDM communications requires a clock recovery unit at each node to extract the clock signal from the transmitted data at speeds beyond the capabilities of present electronics. Although many techniques that can recover clock signals at the same frequency of the transmitted data have been demonstrated, for applications in optical demultiplexing, recovery of clock signals at the base rate is necessary. The aim of this project is to develop new techniques that can recover clock signals at subharmonic frequencies of the transmitted data rate using semiconductor lasers.
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| Title |
Effects of Optical Crosstalk in Fibre-Radio Networks |
| Funding: |
Australian Photonics CRC |
| Manager: |
Thas NIRMALATHAS |
| Research Team: |
David CASTLEFORD (PhD- Completed), Dalma NOVAK, Rod TUCKER |
Description:
The advantages of fibre-optic networks have led to widespread interest in the wireless industry as a means of antenna remoting. In such a system, the remote antenna sites are linked to the central exchange via optical fibre. This is attractive because it enables a large number of base-stations to share the transmitting and processing equipment. The aims of this project are to determine the system requirements of future microwave and millimetre-wave wireless systems and indoor wireless local-area networks and to investigate technologies for the implementation of low-cost, fibre-optic wireless systems operating at frequencies of 1.8 GHz and above. The generation, transmission and distribution of modulated optical signals to remote antenna sites and the interface to wireless links are being investigated.
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| Title |
Fibre Bragg Gratings for Future Lightwave Systems |
| Funding: |
Australian Research Council, JDS Uniphase |
| Manager: |
Thas NIRMALATHAS |
| Research Team: |
Charlotte MARRA (PhD ? Completed), Thas NIRMALATHAS, Dalma NOVAK |
Description:
In the new optical telecommunications network infrastructure incorporating wavelength division multiplexing (WDM), fibre Bragg gratings (FBGs) will play a key role in many applications. WDM is also being considered for optical fibre link applications which incorporate subcarrier multiplexing (SCM) of RF frequencies, such as optically-fed wireless communication systems and CATV networks. In collaboration with JDS Uniphase in Sydney this project is investigating the application of FBGs in WDM/SCM photonic networks. The expected outcomes of this project include: the development of FBGs structures with novel functionality, the development of FBG filters to satisfy the stringent filtering requirements in SCM optical systems, techniques for achieving tunability in FBGs, and an understanding of how the fibre grating dispersion characteristics affect system performance.
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| Title |
WDM optical interfaces for future WDM fibre-radio systems |
| Funding: |
Australian Photonics CRC |
| Manager: |
Thas NIRMALATHAS |
| Research Team: |
Masud BAKAUL (PhD), Christina LIM, Thas NIRMALATHAS |
Description:
WDM optical fibre-backbone networks can provide much needed capacity in the interconnection of remote antenna base-stations in the future broadband wireless access networks operating at millimetre-wave frequencies. Optical network interfaces of such base-stations needs to be developed by taking into account of the base-station complexity as well as the network dimensioning requirements of such broadband wireless networks. This project will investigate technologies for realising simple base-station interfaces that provide more functionalities with low system complexity.
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| Title |
Optimisation of Fibre-Radio System Performance and Novel Architectures |
| Funding: |
Australian Photonics CRC |
| Manager: |
Thas NIRMALATHAS |
| Research Team: |
Teddy KURNIAWAN (M.Eng.Sc. Candidate), Christina LIM |
Description:
Fibre-radio systems offer the possibility of providing true broadband services for future wireless networks through merger of untethered connectivity via broaband wireless interface and high capacity transport via fibre-optic backbone networks. In those systems, optimal system architectures can only be developed by adopting an system wide integrated models that accounts for the impairments and limitations arising from imperfect wireless channel, rf systems and optical transport medium. This project aims at developing methods of optimising such complex system and analyse performance of system architectures and subsystems.
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| Title |
Applications and Characterisation of Mode-locked Lasers |
| Funding: |
AUSTRALIAN PHOTONICS CRC |
| Manager: |
Yang Jing WEN |
| Research Team: |
Hong Chun BAO, Yang Jing WEN |
Description:
Mode-locked laser diodes (LDs) have the potential being used in a wide range of applications such as high speed optical communication systems, fibre wireless systems, all optical processing, optical analog to digital conversion, optical computing and ultra-fast optical sampling and measurement. The aim of this project is to characterise and improve the performance of mode-locked semiconductor lasers as well as to explore their novel applications. The research topics in this project include reducing amplitude modulation in subharmonically mode-locked LDs; characterising the broad band amplitude noise from subharmonically hybrid mode-locked LDs and subharmonically synchronous mode-locked LDs; investigating the impact of saturable absorption on optical pulse generation; investigating the impact of saturable absorption on the performance of optical clock recovery using mode-locked LDs; and developing new applications for subharmonically hybrid mode-locked LDs and subharmonically synchronous mode-locked LDs, including the generation of multi-channel pulse source from a single LD for WDM application.
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| Title |
Technologies for Measurement and Mitigation of Polarisation Mode-Dispersion Induced Impairments |
| Funding: |
AUSTRALIAN PHOTONICS CRC |
| Manager: |
Thas NIRMALATHAS |
| Research Team: |
Leigh PALMER, Sarah DODS, Thas NIRMALATHAS, Peter FARRELL |
Description:
Polarisation mode dispersion (PMD) is a serious issue for present-day 10 Gb/s systems and is a critical limitation on long haul optical telecommunication links for next generation data rates (40 Gb/s and beyond). PMD is difficult to compensate for because it is a dynamic effect, varying on a time scale of milliseconds to hours depending on the environmental conditions. The aim of this project is to investigate the first and higher order PMD effects, both the underlying principles as well as their impact on transmission over long haul optical links, to gain insight into possible compensation techniques. Specifically this project investigates designs for PMD emulators, experimentally and via simulations, within the context of system testing and as a building block in all-optical PMD compensation.
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