光ファイバコードハンドリングロボットを用いた自動光配線切替モジュール

概要

論文の詳細を見る
Conventionally, in intelligent buildings in a metropolitan area network and in small-scale facilities in the optical access network, optical connectors are joined manually using an optical connection board and a patch panel. In this manual connection, mistakes occur due to discrepancies between the actual physical settings of the connections and their management because these processes are independent. This reduces reliability. Moreover, manual cross-connection is time-consuming and expensive because maintenance personnel must be dispatched to remote places to correct mistakes. We have developed automatic optical fiber cross-connect equipment in which a fiber-handling robot provides automatic cross-connection among any of 200 pairs of input and output optical fibers. This equipment allows the cross-connection and management of optical fibers in networks in intelligent buildings and optical access networks to be performed by remote control. We evaluated the performance of the equipment, such as optical characteristics, electromagnetic compatibility, earthquake-proof requirements, and environmental specifications. The evaluation results confirm that the automated optical fiber cross-connect equipment is suitable for practical use in intelligent buildings and optical access networks.