Power control of optical CDMA star networks

In this paper, we apply the power control concept to optical CDMA star networks. Two approaches are considered, namely, centralized and distributed power control. Both approaches are used to optimize the optical transmit power and to maximize network capacity in terms of the number of users satisfying a target signal to interference (SIR) ratio. Centralized algorithms result in the optimum power vector while distributed algorithms are more suitable for practical system implementation and eliminate the need for a centralized control node. Both analytical and simulation results show significant improvement in the performance of the power controlled optical CDMA system. For instance, in a network of 31 nodes, a doubling of the capacity as compared to the non power control case is obtained. Furthermore, we show in the interference-limited case that the network performance is upper bounded by the number of nodes and the correlation properties of the employed code rather than network attenuation and optical fiber lengths. The concept of network partitioning is then introduced to simplify optimum power calculations. Using network partitioning, we find in the interference-limited case that the optical fibers after the star coupler are irrelevant to the optimum power evaluation.