Dantzig–Wolfe decomposition for the design of filterless optical networks

Filterless optical networks use passive splitters and combiners with coherent optics, providing wavelength selection in the digital domain, while forming a passive fiber-tree topology between nodes. In this study, we investigate the optimal design of filterless optical networks while minimizing the number of required wavelengths. We propose a Dantzig–Wolfe decomposition model in which each subproblem aims to generate a potential filterless optical subnetwork, with a directed tree topology. The master problem then selects the best combination of subnetworks. Numerical experiments demonstrate significant performance improvement over previous work, reducing previous computational results by a factor of 2 to 10, depending on the size of the data instances.