The Optical Communications Group (GCO) is part of the Signal Theory and Communications Department (TSC). Our key research areas involve Optical Fiber Technologies, Raman Spectroscopy and High-Speed Networking.

Our experience is related to optical wavelength domain transport and access networks (WDM, HDWDM, SCM), broadband fiber transmission, sources and receivers, all-optical amplification, optical heterodyne detection, wavelength stabilization and monitoring, transparent WDM network architectures and management, optical linear and non-linear distortions, polarization/PMD treatment and network quality monitoring.

The group is integrated in the Advanced Broadband Communications Centre (CCABA) -CCABA is the acronym of ''Centre de Comunicacions Avançades de Banda Ampla''. The CCABA was set up in January 1994 with the aim of consolidating a multi-disciplinary research group: the Integrated Broadband Communications research group, the Optical Communications, the Radio Communications and the Broadband Communications groups. The UPC supports this research centre and its laboratory was partially funded by the Spanish Education Ministry (CICYT) and by Research Commission of the Catalan Government (CIRIT) under several grants. In the EC IV Framework Programme the UPC participated in the Spanish National Host through the network platform of the CCABA.

The GCO laboratories are fully equipped with broadband instrumentation for WDM and high bit rate opto-electronic system design and characterization, as well as long haul fiber link measurements and IP-ATM-SDH-WDM networking.

Pàgina web del Departament

Recent Submissions

  • Quantifying bypass traffic in partially meshed transparent optical networks 

    Comellas Colomé, Jaume; Hario, Fakhriy; Junyent Giralt, Gabriel (Springer Nature, 2023-06-28)
    Article
    Open Access
    This work investigates the transparent bypassing capacity requirements of elastic backbone optical networks to determine the all-optical cross-connection capacity needed at network nodes. Topological parameters have been ...
  • Simple single-laser coherent transceiver based on low-cost D-EML for edge networks 

    Masanas Jiménez, Miquel; Polo Querol, Víctor; Prat Gomà, Josep Joan (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), 2023-03-15)
    Article
    Open Access
    In this work we demonstrate single-laser, D-EML based coherent transceivers which transmit and simultaneously receive optical single sideband modulations through a phase noise cancelling scheme, leading to phase-noise and ...
  • Demonstration of continuous multiple access with image-rejection coherent receiver and DML transmitters 

    Tabares Giraldo, Jeison; Masanas Jiménez, Miquel; Cano Valadéz, Iván Nicolás; Prat Gomà, Josep Joan (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), 2022)
    Conference report
    Restricted access - publisher's policy
    We demonstrate a UD-WDM PON using DML transmitters with multilevel intensity modulation, both in base-band and RF, and a spectrally-efficient heterodyne receiver. We provide comparison with a homodyne receiver. Two users ...
  • Distributed and autonomous flow routing based on deep reinforcement learning 

    Barzegar, Sima; Ruiz Ramírez, Marc; Velasco Esteban, Luis Domingo (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), 2022)
    Conference report
    Open Access
    A DRL approach with a specific reward function is proposed for autonomous flow routing operating on multilayer scenarios. Illustrative results reveal that the DRL achieves optimal flow routing in terms of cost and service ...
  • Data plane technology-agnostic control and orchestration architecture for optical disaggregated data centers 

    Agraz Bujan, Fernando; Pagès Cruz, Albert; Spadaro, Salvatore (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), 2022)
    Conference report
    Restricted access - publisher's policy
    We propose a novel SDN control and orchestration architecture to provide composed IaaS over optical disaggregated data centers. We experimentally validate intent-based mechanisms that make the architecture independent from ...
  • On the complexity of configuration and orchestration for enabling disaggregated server provisioning in optical composable data centers 

    Pagès Cruz, Albert; Agraz Bujan, Fernando; Spadaro, Salvatore (Optical Society of American (OSA), 2022-12-01)
    Article
    Open Access
    Due to the limitations of traditional data center (DC) architectures, the concept of infrastructure disaggregation has been proposed. DC resources are separated into multiple blades to be exploited independently. As a ...
  • Single sideband techniques for next generation low-cost UD-WDM coherent PONs 

    Masanas Jiménez, Miquel; Polo Querol, Víctor; Prat Gomà, Josep Joan (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), 2022)
    Conference report
    Restricted access - publisher's policy
    Two applications for splitter-based, coherent passive optical networks are investigated. Coherent technologies enable ultra-dense wavelength division multiplexing, increasing the dedicated data rates per application, the ...
  • OCATA: A deep-learning-based digital twin for the optical time domain 

    Sequeira, Diogo Gonçalo; Ruiz Ramírez, Marc; Costa, Nelson; Napoli, Antonio; Pedro, João; Velasco Esteban, Luis Domingo (Optical Society of American (OSA), 2023-02-01)
    Article
    Restricted access - publisher's policy
    The development of digital twins to represent the optical transport network might enable multiple applications for network operation, including automation and fault management. In this work, we propose a deep-learning-based ...
  • Supporting heterogenous traffic on top of point-to-multipoint light-trees † 

    Iqbal, Masab; Velasco Esteban, Luis Domingo; Ruiz Ramírez, Marc; Costa, Nelson; Napoli, Antonio; Pedro, João; Comellas Colomé, Jaume (2023-02-23)
    Article
    Open Access
    New 5 G and beyond services demand innovative solutions in optical transport to increase efficiency and flexibility and reduce capital (CAPEX) and operational (OPEX) expenditures to support heterogeneous and dynamic traffic. ...
  • Quantum bit retransmission using universal quantum copying machine 

    Iqbal, Masab; Velasco Esteban, Luis Domingo; Ruiz Ramírez, Marc; Napoli, Antonio; Pedro, João; Costa, Nelson (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), 2022)
    Conference report
    Open Access
    Quantum internet, which is expected to be a combination of quantum and classical networks, promises to provide information-theoretic security for data exchange. Classical networks have well-established protocols for reliable ...
  • Dual time and frequency domain optical layer digital twin 

    Devigili, Mariano; Ruiz Ramírez, Marc; Costa, Nelson; Napoli, Antonio; Pedro, João; Velasco Esteban, Luis Domingo (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), 2022)
    Conference report
    Open Access
    We demonstrate a digital twin for failure detection in optical networks. Artificial neural networks-based models for optical constellation analysis enable predicting the transmitted signal in the time domain whereas ...
  • Multi-agent-based dynamic optical subcarrier allocation for near real-time P2MP operation 

    Shakespear Miles, Hailey Josephine; Ruiz Ramírez, Marc; Napoli, Antonio; Velasco Esteban, Luis Domingo (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), 2022)
    Conference report
    Open Access
    We propose a multi-agent system (MAS) to manage subcarrier allocation in point-to-multipoint connectivity based on Digital Subcarrier Multiplexing. Similar performance to a centralized approach is shown, which allows for ...

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