A novel adaptive RWA algorithm in wavelength-routed network

The Routing and Wavelength Assignment (RWA) problem is very important to a wavelength-routed network especially when lacking of wavelength converters. Conventional RWA algorithms use alternated routing method to improve the blocking performance by providing multi possible routes between node pairs. But among these algorithms, there are two other crucial factors which influence the network performance dramatically are neglected: they are the hops of each alternative routes and the position of each link in this network. Based on this viewpoint, two new concepts are introduced to determine these characters accurately. Following these concepts, one novel RWA algorithm named Less Influence Path First (LIPF) algorithm is proposed. It has been proved that by taking these two factors into account, the LIPF algorithm outperforms the conventional heuristic RWA algorithms.