Spectra SDR the SCA Validator

Take Out the Risk of SCA Compliance and Compatibility Requirements for Software Defined Radios with PrismTech's Spectra CX Tools

The time and expense of building Software Communications Architecture (SCA) radio platforms and waveforms can be excessive, and then the time to field the radios lengthens as radio manufacturers incur the additional overhead of acquiring certification of their Software Defined Radio (SDR). The long cycle times for SCA certification are largely due to the lack of tools available for better automation of the validation process, as well as development tools that assist in quickly resolving SCA compliancy problems during certification. SDR architecture validation tools that truly accelerate SCA testing, reporting, and correction cycles have been slow to emerge given multiple complexities including:
• Numerous SDR platforms with proprietary variations of SCA implementations that tools need to support
• XML waveform SCA descriptor files hand-coded and prone to errors that make it difficult for tools to successfully reverse engineer and then validate the code
• Comprehensive report generation of XML and IDL errors and inconsistencies required to help quickly communicate findings and that include detailed enough information to assist developers in quickly correcting non-compliancy issues

How can SDR research and test labs more rapidly validate SCA compliance and how can radio and waveform developers shorten the costly cycles of the SCA validation process?

How is SCA validation done?

The SCA validation process requires examination of many XML descriptor files and Interface Definition Language (IDL) files to confirm that the SCA is properly adhered to by waveforms and platform implementations. Validating these files without automation from tool platforms is a daunting task given these files are written in machine-friendly but very human unfriendly languages – a difficult job akin to debugging 3GL code without compilers. Using modern software engineering tools, these XML and IDL files can be reverse engineered into easier to understand waveform and platform models. But what if these files contain syntactic and semantic errors? And we can expect they do given that many of these files were hand written. Unfortunately, most tools simply don’t support model generation from files that contain errors. Because of this shortcoming, testers and developers cannot progress to model visualization until they fix these files. To make matters worse, test labs are typically not responsible for corrections, just reporting SCA compliance problems.

How to get SCA Validation FAST!

PrismTech’s team of recognized SDR and SCA experts have released the latest version of the Spectra CX Tools that address the issues faced by SDR research and testing facilities plus support rapid and successful attainment of SCA compliancy validation for SDR customers and vendors alike. To address the common issues causing large amounts of time and effort to be expended during the SCA validation process, Spectra CX supports the following advanced features for SCA validation:
• Reverse engineering of SCA 2.2 and 2.2.2 XML files into waveform and platforms models providing instant visualization of these complex files
• Automatic validation of XML and IDL files during reverse engineering
• Best effort models generated even from faulty XML files with indications of each error encountered
• Users can correct validation errors directly in XML and IDL files discovered during reverse engineering using Spectra’s integrated language sensitive editors or can use generated models to correct issues
• Markers in the XML files allow reverse engineering/validation sessions to be stopped and restarted with no loss of work or effort
• Comprehensive SCA validation reports addressing over 160 compliance rules
• Validation reports capture errors and warnings for each XML and IDL file and identify line number, type of error, description of the error, and the reference to SCA indicating the cause of the error
• Validation coverage for SCA versions 2.2 and 2.2.2



Complying with SCA requirements is an important goal for United States and coalition defense forces as SCA compliant Software Defined Radios accelerate Netcentric interoperability goals and increase adoption of SDR waveforms and platforms by global defense, first response and public safety programs.

Spectra CXTools delivers complete and model-driven SCA waveform and platform validation with full error reporting, plus automated SCA code correction capability that ensures rapid delivery of Netcentric-ready SDRs