System for controlling a process for interconnection of optical fibers including fuzzy logic control and optimization architecture

Abstract

Control of an interconnection process for optical fibers involves evaluating the status of all modules used in the process and moving an optical fiber through the process in accordance with the status of the modules. Such control allows more than one fiber, and more than one fiber type, to be processed simultaneously. The processing may be optimized using fuzzy logic to track when operations performed by a module are near completion. A graphical user interface displaying the movement of the optical fibers through the process may also be provided.

What is claimed:  
     
         1 . A method for controlling an optical fiber interconnection processing system having a plurality of modules comprising: 
 polling all modules to be used during interconnection processing to determine a status of each module;    determining an overall status of the optical fiber interconnection processing system based on said polling; and    moving optical fibers through the interconnection processing system in accordance with the overall status.    
     
     
         2 . The method of    claim 1   , wherein said polling includes determining if a module being polled is working properly.  
     
     
         3 . The method of    claim 1   , wherein said polling includes determining if an optical fiber is positioned in a module being polled.  
     
     
         4 . The method of    claim 1   , wherein said polling includes determining if an optical fiber positioned in a module being polled is in good condition.  
     
     
         5 . The method of    claim 1   , wherein said polling includes determining if a module being polled is busy.  
     
     
         6 . The method of    claim 1   , further comprising interconnection processing multiple optical fibers simultaneously.  
     
     
         7 . The method of    claim 1   , further comprising interconnection processing multiple types of optical fibers simultaneously.  
     
     
         8 . The method of    claim 1   , wherein said moving is discrete between modules and said method further comprises prioritizing said moving between modules using fuzzy logic based optimization in accordance with the overall status.  
     
     
         9 . The method of    claim 1   , further comprising providing an open architecture for controlling the modules.  
     
     
         10 . The method of    claim 1   , further comprising: 
 providing a graphical user interface; and    remotely reconfiguring the modules via the graphical user interface to handle a plurality of fiber types.    
     
     
         11 . A computerized system for monitoring progress of optical fibers through an interconnection processing apparatus comprising a graphical user interface including a representation of modules in the interconnection processing apparatus and an identification of any optical fiber currently associated with a represented module tagged to that corresponding module.  
     
     
         12 . The system of    claim 1     1 , wherein said graphical user interface further includes a window displaying data of fibers having completed processing by the interconnection processing apparatus.  
     
     
         13 . The system of    claim 12   , wherein said window displays data regarding optical fibers which have successfully been processed by the interconnection processing apparatus in one portion thereof and data regarding optical fibers which have not successfully been processed by the interconnection processing apparatus in another portion thereof.  
     
     
         14 . The system of    claim 1     1 , wherein said graphical user interface further includes., when a module is selected, a window displaying a status of the module being selected.  
     
     
         15 . The system of    claim 1     1 , wherein said graphical user interface further includes, when a module is selected, a window displaying parameters used in the processing performed by the module being selected.  
     
     
         16 . The system of    claim 11   , wherein said representations of said modules are arranged in an order in which they would be used in the interconnection processing apparatus.  
     
     
         17 . A method for controlling an optical fiber interconnection processing apparatus comprising: 
 determining a rule base for controlling the apparatus;    setting a membership function for each module and each task performed thereby in the optical fiber interconnection processing apparatus; and    moving optical fibers through the optical fiber interconnection processing apparatus in accordance the rule base and the membership functions.    
     
     
         18 . The method of    claim 17   , wherein said membership function for a module represents a level of availability of the module.  
     
     
         19 . The method of    claim 17   , wherein said membership function for a task represents a level of completeness of the task.  
     
     
         20 . An apparatus for controlling an optical fiber interconnection processing system including a plurality of modules comprising: 
 a supervisory controller in communication with each of the modules, the supervisory controller receiving status information from each module and determining an overall status of the interconnection processing system; and    a handling device delivering optical fibers to the modules in accordance with the overall status, the handling device being in communication with the supervisory controller.    
     
     
         21 . The apparatus of    claim 20   , wherein when the overall status indicates more than one fiber is being processed simultaneously, the supervisory controller prioritizes movement of the more than one fiber by the handling device using fuzzy logic based optimization in accordance with the overall status.  
     
     
         22 . The apparatus of    claim 20   , wherein one of the modules is a loading deck and provides information regarding fiber type to the supervisory controller, and wherein when the overall status indicates more than one type of fiber is being processed simultaneously, the supervisory controller prioritizes movement of the more than one type of fiber by the handling device using fuzzy logic based optimization in accordance with the overall status.  
     
     
         23 . The apparatus of    claim 20   , wherein the supervisory controller may control the handling device to return an optical fiber to a module which has already processed the optical fiber if the supervisory controller determines failure of the optical fiber may be remediable.