A Novel Technique to Minimize Gain-Transient Time of WDM signals in EDFA

We propose a new technique to minimize gain-transient time of wavelength-division-multiplexing (WDM) signals in erbium-doped fiber amplifier (EDFA) in channel add/drop networks. We have dramatically reduced the gain-transient time to less than 3 musec by applying, for the first time to our knowledge, a disturbance observer with a proportional/integral/differential (PID) controller to the control of EDFA gain. The 3 musec gain-transient time is the fastest one ever reported and it is about less than 1.5 % of 200 musec gain-transient time of commercially available EDFAs for WDM networks. We have demonstrated the superiority of the new technique by performing the simulation with a numerical modeling software package such as the Optsim^trade.