Quality of Transmission Estimation and Short-Term Performance Forecast of Lightpaths

With ever-increasing traffic, the need of more dynamic, flexible, and autonomous optical networks is more important than ever. The availability of performance monitoring data makes it possible to leverage machine learning (ML) for fast quality of transmission (QoT) estimation and performance prediction of lightpaths in complex optical networks. In this article, we will explore classifiers based on support vector machine (SVM) and artificial neural network (ANN) for QoT estimation of unestablished lightpaths. Using a synthetic knowledge base (KB), the classification accuracy of the ANN and SVM models decreased from 99%, with a complete feature set, to 85.03% and 88.52%, respectively, with a reduced feature set. We also propose a Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM), an Encoder-Decoder LSTM and a Gated Recurrent Unit (GRU) models, trained with 13-months field performance data, for lightpath signal-to-noise (SNR) prediction over forecast horizons up to four days. Positive R-2 values combined with low (<0.285 dB) root mean square error (RMSE) indicated that the GRU model achieved slightly better predictions than the naive method for forecast horizons ranging from 1 to 96 hours, whereas the LSTM performed better over 24 to 96-hour forecast horizons. The Encoder-Decoder LSTM model achieved the lowest R-2 and the highest RMSE values (0.296 dB). Additional input data will be needed to improve the prediction accuracy of the LSTM and GRU models trained with single lightpath data.