Energy-saving framework for passive optical networks with ONU sleep/doze mode

This paper proposes an energy-saving passive optical network framework (ESPON) that aims to incorporate optical network unit (ONU) sleep/doze mode into dynamic bandwidth allocation (DBA) algorithms to reduce ONU energy consumption. In the ESPON, the optical line terminal (OLT) schedules both downstream (DS) and upstream (US) transmissions in the same slot in an online and dynamic fashion whereas the ONU enters sleep mode outside the slot. The ONU sleep time is maximized based on both DS and US traffic. Moreover, during the slot, the ONU might enter doze mode when only its transmitter is idle to further improve energy efficiency. The scheduling order of data transmission, control message exchange, sleep period, and doze period defines an energy-efficient scheme under the ESPON. Three schemes are designed and evaluated in an extensive FPGA-based evaluation. Results show that whilst all the schemes significantly save ONU energy for different evaluation scenarios, the scheduling order has great impact on their performance. In addition, the ESPON allows for a scheduling order that saves ONU energy independently of the network reach.