arXiv subjects
Publications and source records attributed to Renato Ambrosone.
We demonstrate TwinLight, an open-source optical-network digital twin acting as an optical domain controller. Its T-API REST and telemetry streaming interfaces expose a physical-layer engine that combines a GNPy steady-state baseline with four analytical transients.
With the widespread adoption of AI, machine-to-machine communications are rapidly increasing, reshaping the requirements for optical networks. Recent advances in Gaussian noise modeling for digital coherent transmission have raised expectations for digital-twin-based operation. However, unlike digital twins in wireless communication, which are already well established, significant barriers remain for commercialization in optical networks. This paper discusses the evolving requirements of optical networks in the AI era and proposes a practical Optical Network Digital Twin architecture enabling dynamic and Quality of Transmission aware operation beyond conventional management. Representative use cases, including operator-driven optimization, user-operator collaboration, and multi-operator interconnection, are presented, along with the architectural framework and key challenges toward practical deployment.
Optical Network Digital Twins (ONDTs) are emerging as a key framework for representing, synchronizing, and utilizing the physical state of optical networks for quality-of-transmission (QoT) estimation, optimization, and intelligent operation. This survey provides a comprehensive view of ONDTs, spanning digital coherent transmission and physical-layer observability to intelligent network operations. We systematically organize ONDT technologies from ecosystem, functional, control, and implementation architecture perspectives and review the enabling technologies required to construct, synchronize, and utilize digital representations of physical optical networks. As a unifying framework to describe both ONDT design and validation, we introduce a categorization based on the following figures of merit: Fidelity, Dynamicity, and Deployability (FDD). In particular, we emphasize fit-for-purpose Fidelity, where modeling effort focuses on the physical effects of components rather than solely maximizing model accuracy, favoring scalability and generalizability. Furthermore, experimental and field validations are examined to evaluate the practical applicability of ONDT technologies. We further examine experimental and field validations, from physics-based QoT estimation and measurement-informed model refinement to field synchronization, service provisioning, multi-domain observability, and infrastructure characterization. Finally, we discuss the complementary roles of ONDTs and AI agents toward autonomous optical networks and identify key research directions for practical deployment.
We demonstrate a multi-layer slicing architecture enabling deployment of 3GPP network slices as self-contained, connected functions atop optical transport slices. The system provides Optical Spectrum as a Service (OSaaS) by integrating disaggregated optical control, multi-tenant orchestration, and telemetry-based optimization via standard interfaces.
Optical communications and networking are fast becoming the solution to support ever-increasing data traffic across all segments of the network, expanding from core/metro networks to 5G/6G front-hauling. Therefore, optical networks need to evolve towards an efficient exploitation of the infrastructure by overcoming the closed and aggregated paradigm, to enable apparatus sharing together with the slicing and separation of the optical data plane from the optical control. In addition to the advantages in terms of efficiency and cost reduction, this evolution will increase the network reliability, also allowing for a fine trade-off between robustness and maximum capacity exploitation. In this work, an optical network architecture is presented based on the physical layer digital twin of the optical transport used within a multi-layer hierarchical control operated by an intent-based network operating system. An experimental proof of concept is performed on a three node network including up to 1000 km optical transmission, open re-configurable optical add & drop multiplexers (ROADMs) and white-box transponders hosting pluggable multi-rate transceivers. The proposed solution is based on GNPy as optical physical layer digital twin and ONOS as intent-based network operating system. The reliability of the optical control decoupled by the data plane functioning is experimentally demonstrated exploiting GNPy as open lightpath computation engine and software optical amplifier models derived from the component characterization. Besides the lightpath deployment exploiting the modulation format evaluation given a generic traffic request, the architecture reliability is tested mimicking the use case of an automatic failure recovery from a fiber cut.