Developing Jtrs/Sca Compliant Software for Specialized Hardware Processors - A Case Study

The joint tactical radio system (JTRS) is a family of modular, multi-band, networked software defined radios that are built on an international open standard called the software communications architecture (SCA). The goal of the SCA is to enable waveform software portability so that waveforms can be developed once and used on multiple radio platforms. SCA uses the common object request broker architecture (CORBA) as the software bus to handle the interactions between waveform software components. The component portability specification allows for efficient communication. In their presentation integrating specialized hardware to JTRS/SCA software defined radios´ at MILCOM 2005, the authors explained the CPS in detail. This year, they present a case study on an end-to-end waveform development on DSPs and FPGAs. The paper starts with the SCA model of a Reed Solomon block encoder-from which the source code for the component will be generated, compiled for two different hardware environments, and executed. The paper demonstrates the work flow and tool chain for CPS-based software development and analyzes the cost and benefits. The paper concludes with an enumeration of next steps required to further integrate signal processing tools into the development suite for specialized processor classes