Analyses and upgrades of the open source project GNPy

In the rapidly evolving landscape of the digital age, the demand for Internet bandwidth shows no signs of slowing down. Most of today's Internet traffic travels through fiber optics. The remarkable properties of optical fiber, such as low attenuation and high bandwidth capacity, make it an ideal choice for long-distance, high-capacity data transmission. As the global demand for high-speed Internet continues to grow, the continued advancement of optical technology remains critical to ensuring that the digital infrastructure can handle the ever-increasing traffic and reduce energy consumption through increased efficiency. A better understanding of the physics of each element needed to realize its great potential. The goal of this thesis is to provide a model that accurately characterizes the physical effect that light suffers as it traverses different elements of the optical network. The first part of the research focused on finding a model to characterize the optical amplifier and test it in different real-world scenarios. A dataset with information about different optical amplifiers has been provided. The result that allowed the development of the model is that the gain profile depends only on the gain and the tilt of the amplifier. A step-by-step procedure has been created to best characterize each amplifier, resulting in 2 unique profiles that are specific to the amplifier. From the amplifier characterization, it is possible to recreate all possible gain profiles derived from the gain and tilt pair. The final step has been to provide an efficient way to insert this model into the open source software GNPy (a digital twin for the optical network developed by a consortium of companies). The second part of the research has been the aim to verify the behavior of GNPy with the new model of amplifier in multi-band scenarios. Validation of GNPy for L-band and C-band has been performed. The topology used for data acquisition consists of L-band and C-band optical amplifiers and 5 fiber spans. Optical fiber parameters and connector losses have been measured. Connector losses and some fiber parameters have been post-processed to obtain consistent data. An experimental measured campaign has been carry out with different launch power level. An optical spectrum analyzer has been placed before and after each amplifier to measure power and noise. This data has been compared with the simulated data from GNPy to evaluate the accuracy of the overall model in a multi-band scenario. In summary, the relentless growth in demand for Internet bandwidth and network efficiency is a driving force for ongoing research in the field of telecommunications, and particularly in the optical field. Implementing more accurate models that account for how the network infrastructure actually operates is the path that needs to be taken. At the same time, the continued development of innovative solutions to fully utilize the capacity of existing infrastructure ensures that the Internet backbone can meet the ever-increasing demand for high-speed data transmission.