Front accessible optical beam switch

Details Front accessible optical beam switch Front accessible optical beam switch

1999-10-18

2001-09-04

Le, Que T. (Department: 2878)

Radiant energy

Photocells; circuits and apparatus

Optical or pre-photocell system

C385S016000

Reexamination Certificate

active

06285022

ABSTRACT:

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION
Related subject matter is disclosed in the pending application entitled “STRICTLY NON-BLOCKING SCALABLE MATRIX OPTICAL SWITCH” filed on Feb. 20, 1998 by B. H. Lee, Ser. No. 09/026,856, now U.S. Pat. No. 6,005,998, which is assigned to the same assignee as the present application.
TECHNICAL FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to optical switches, and more particularly, to an optical switch that is arranged to be accessible from the front when mounted in a rack assembly.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
In optical transmission, applications exist wherein numerous optical signals carried by respective optical fibers must be switched or routed to a corresponding number of output fibers. Optical cross-connects have been used to provide this optical switching function. The U.S. Pat. No. 5,206,497, issued on Apr. 27, 1993 to B. H. Lee describes an optical cross-connect that uses a free-space optical switching apparatus.
Another type of optical cross-connect can be implemented using a large optical beam steering switch designed by using motor driven beam deflection clusters. Such an arrangement is disclosed in the pending application entitled “STRICTLY NON-BLOCKING SCALABLE MATRIX OPTICAL SWITCH” filed on Feb. 20, 1998 by B. H. Lee, Ser. No. 09/026,856, and assigned to the same assignee as the present application. In one of the Lee arrangements, the beam deflection clusters are mounted on both ends of the beam steering switch. When this optical beam switch is mounted horizontally in an integrated rack assembly, as shown in
FIG. 1
, access from the sides is required to replace the clusters. However, this violates the frontal accessibility requirement often specified by customers. Horizontal mounting also requires that the optical beam switch span across several integrated rack assemblies, because of its large size. Handling and transportation of the optical beam switch also becomes more difficult. Meeting Telcordia's Network Equipment Building Systems (NEBS) Requirements (e.g., GR-63-CORE, Issue 1) also becomes exceedingly difficult. These problems also increase when the cross-connect size increases.
When the optical beam switch is mounted vertically in a rack assembly, as shown in
FIG. 2
, then access to the beam deflection clusters requires access via the top and bottom, which is also not easy because of the size of the optical beam switch and the limited space in the rack assembly.
What is needed is an optical beam switch of reduced size and improved accessibility when mounted in a rack assembly.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
In accordance with the present invention, a fiber optic beam switch apparatus is designed for improved serviceability by mounting two fiber optic beam deflection arrays (or clusters) to face the front of a rack assembly. Inside the optical beam switch, a reflecting device is located behind each of the two fiber optic beam deflection arrays and used to reflect the light beams between the two fiber optic beam deflection arrays. Front access to the two fiber optic beam deflection arrays is then readily available whether the optical beam switch is mounted horizontally or vertically in the rack assembly.
More specifically, my fiber optic switch apparatus comprises (1) a first fiber optic beam deflection array mounted to a front face of the fiber optic switch apparatus, (2) a first reflecting device, positioned behind the first fiber optic beam deflection array at about forty five degree angle to the first fiber optic beam deflection array, reflects optical beams received from the first fiber optic beam deflection array, (3) a second fiber optic beam deflection array is mounted to the front face of the fiber optic switch apparatus and disposed along the front face at an appropriate distance away from the first fiber optic beam deflection array, and (4) a second reflecting device, positioned behind the second fiber optic beam deflection array at about forty five degree angle to the second fiber optic beam deflection array, receives reflected optical beams from the first reflecting mirror and further reflects those reflected beams to the second fiber optic beam deflection array.


REFERENCES:
patent: 4478494 (1984-10-01), Soref
patent: 5206497 (1993-04-01), Lee

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