Equalizer placement and wavelength selective switch architecture for optical network security

In this work, a node architecture based on wavelength selective switches with feedback loop attenuators that can be used as power equalizers, as well as an optimization algorithm are utilized in order to minimize the impact of physical layer jamming attacks in optical networks, while also minimizing the capital expenditure (Capex) of the network. Due to crosstalk-induced interactions among different connections, malicious high-power jamming signals can potentially spread widely in the network. Therefore, it is necessary to design an optical network in a way that the spread of an attack is minimized. This is achieved in this work by the design of appropriate power equalizer placement and attack-aware Routing and Wavelength Assignment (RWA) algorithms in the form of Integer Linear Program (ILP) formulations. Performance results indicate that the proposed algorithms minimize the number of required equalizers for zero lightpath interactions without the need of additional wavelength resources.