Optical time-division switching system employing optical bistable devices.

摘要

in an optical time-division switching system, time-division multiplexed calling and called station signals are arranged in incoming time slots and applied through an incoming common optical medium (15) to a first optical switching circuit (60) that switches the signals to optical bistable devices (81-84) in which the signals are stored as binary 1 's or 0's. A second optical switching circuit (100) is coupled to the bistable devices for reading the stored calling station signal in the time slot of the called station and reading the stored called station signal in the time slot of the calling station to rearrange the signals in outgoing time slots. The signals in the outgoing time slots are applied through an outgoing common optical medium (17) to a time-division demultiplexer which sequentially distributes the signals to the calling and called stations.