Conical fiberoptic switch

Claim 1

An optical switching device comprising: n fixed optical fiber cables each having an end portion, n being an integer greater than 1, each cable including at least one optical fiber, said n cables located so that the end portion of each cable lies substantially on a conical surface having an axis and the optical fiber in each cable is optically aligned with a point on said axis; a movable optical fiber cable having an end portion rotatable about said axis, said movable cable including at least one optical fiber that has an end portion, said end portion of said movable optical cable being at an angle to said axis so that it is also substantially on said conical surface when it is rotated; a stepping motor for rotating the rotatable end portion of the movable cable about said axis; a stepping motor control system for controlling the rotation of the stepping motor to align the rotatable end portion of the movable cable with any one of the n fixed cables, so that the stepping motor rotates the end portion of the movable cable by one of n preset numbers of steps, each of said n numbers of steps corresponding to the position of the end portion of a fixed cable, so that when the rotatable end portion of the movable cable is rotated by a number of steps selected from said n numbers of steps, the end portion of the optical fiber in the movable cable will be substantially optically aligned with the end portion of the optical fiber in the fixed cable whose position corresponds to said selected number of steps.