Comparison of metaheuristic approaches for impairment aware transparent optical networks

In this paper two metaheuristic approaches are compared while solving the dynamic routing and wavelength assignment (DRWA) problem in wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) optical network. In this problem, the effect of Four Wave Mixing (FWM) and amplifier spontaneous emission (ASE) noise are incorporated while solving the problem. The two metaheuristic approaches used in this work are evolutionary programming algorithm (EP) and simulated annealing (SA). These metaheuristic techniques use a common objective function that is designed to reduce the effect of FWM noise and ASE noise on a requested lightpath. The FWM crosstalk products and the static FWM noise power per link are pre computed in order to reduce the set up time of a requested lightpath, and stored in an offline database. These are retrieved during the setting up of a lightpath and evaluated online taking the dynamic parameters like cost of the links into consideration.