System and method for receiving optical signals

摘要

A stream of wavelength division multiplexed optical signals can be converted into the electrical domain and processed electrically to discriminate the information on each optical signal. An optical medium can transmit multiple optical communication signals, each having a different wavelength and each imprinted with different information. Detectors can receive the optical communication signals, with each detector receiving some of each communication signal. Thus, any one of the detectors can output an electrical signal according to a composite of multiple optical communication signals. Accordingly, each output electrical signal can include features or energy of each of the optical communication signals. An electrical circuit can process the electrical signals output by the detectors. The processing can remove from each electrical signal contributions from all but one of the optical communication signals, so that each processed electrical signal carries the information of a single wavelength division multiplexed optical signal.

主权项

1. A communication method, comprising the steps of:
illuminating a first detector with a first predetermined amount of a first optical signal carrying first information at a first wavelength and a first predetermined amount of a second optical signal carrying second information at a second wavelength to provide a first electrical output signal; and illuminating a second detector with a second predetermined amount of the first optical signal and a second predetermined amount of the second optical signal to provide a second electrical output signal; scaling the first electrical signal to provide a scaled version of the first electrical signal; scaling the second electrical signal to provide a scaled version of the second electrical signal; determining the first information by processing the first electrical signal with the scaled version of the second electrical signal to at least reduce the second information contained in the processed first electrical signal; and determining the second information by processing the second electrical signal with the scaled version of the first electrical signal to at least reduce the first information contained in the processed second electrical signal.