A large-capacity optical router is disclosed that exchanges data traffic
such as IP packets, Ethernet frames, etc., at high speed in units of
optical frames. The large-capacity optical router uses an electric buffer
including input ports, output ports, an add port for inputting data
received from a lower IP router, a drop port for outputting data to the
lower IP router, a wavelength division demultiplexing section for
wavelength-division-demultiplexing wavelength signals input through the
input ports and the add port, an input interface section for converting
optical frames from the wavelength division demultiplexing section into
electric signals, and an optical switch for performing a high-speed
switching of the optical frames from the input interface section. The
large-capacity optical router also includes an output interface section
for processing the optical frames output from the optical switch, a
wavelength division multiplexing section for
wavelength-division-multiplexing outputs of the output interface section
and transmitting the multiplexed outputs to another large-capacity
optical router, a drop interface section for processing the optical
frames from the wavelength division multiplexer to the lower IP router, a
header processing section for recognizing header information, an optical
switch control section for controlling a connection state of the optical
switch, a header reinserting section for reinserting headers into outputs
of the optical router, and an edge traffic aggregator including of an
ingress part for converting IP packets input from the lower IP router
into optical frames and an egress part for converting the optical frames
into IP packets and transmitting the converted packets to the IP router.