HORNET - A packet-switched WDM network: Optical packet transmission and recovery

The hybrid optoelectronic ring network (HORNET) is a novel packet-switched wavelength-division-multiplexed metropolitan area network (MAN). HORNET use s a combination of optical and electronic packet-switching and an optical c arrier sense multiple access with collision avoidance (CSMA/CA) media acces s scheme to efficiently provide large bandwidth to many users. The HORNET o ptical packets consist of 2.5-Gb/s payload data, an embedded 2.5-GHz clock tone, and a subcarrier-multiplexed (SCM) header for CSMA/CA, We are constru cting an experimental testbed to demonstrate the ability of HORNET nodes to transmit and receive packets, to recover the destination node address carr ied by the SCM header, and to perform fast clock and data recovery with min imal overhead within the HORNET packet receiver.