Investigating the reliability of all-optical switches in transient mode

In this paper the scheme of 8×8 all-optical switch with two duplicating switching elements and the algorithm of its functioning are presented. For calculating the reliability of all-optical switches, the analytical method based on the Markov process theory is presented. This method allows us to calculate reliability indicators of the all-optical switches as downtime coefficient and availability factor in stationary and transient modes and time of transient mode. The results of numerical calculations show that an increase in the number of duplicating elements by one gives decrease in the downtime coefficient by 6 percent, and the time of the transient process is halved in this case.