Partners

Communications Research Centre Canada

Spectrum has partnered with Communications Research Centre Canada (CRC) to offer SCARI++, CRC's implementation of the Software Communication Architecture Core Framework, on Spectrum's SDR-4000 rugged software defined radio (SDR) platform. Designed in Canada, this commercial off-the shelf solution is available to the international military communications community.

The CRC, an agency of Industry Canada, is the Canadian government's primary laboratory for research and development (R&D) in advanced telecommunications. Their R&D is used for public policy purposes and to strengthen the Canadian economy through technology and knowledge transfer. Under its four research branches, CRC specializes in taking an interdisciplinary approach to longer-term R&D in wireless systems, radio fundamentals, communication networks, photonics and interactive multimedia.

CRC website

Green Hills Software, Inc.

Spectrum has partnered with Green Hills Software to provide INTEGRITY® RTOS, a secure, royalty-free Real-Time Operating System intended for use in embedded systems that require maximum reliability. Spectrum also offers Green Hill's MULTI® Integrated Development Environment (IDE) integrated onto flexComm hardware to accelerate time to deployment.

Green Hills Website

Harris Corporation

Spectrum has partnered with Harris Corporation to provide a Software Communications Architecture (SCA) Core Framework (CF) to provide an integrated commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) platform that supports the US Department of Defense Joint Tactical Radio System (JTRS) requirements. Harris is an international communications equipment company focused on providing product, system and service solutions for commercial and government customers. Spectrum was the first Value Added Reseller (VAR) of Harris’ Domain Management ToolKit (dmTK). The Harris dmTK product, which is being offered as part of Spectrum’s flexComm product line, provides advanced development tools and a Software Communications Architecture (SCA) Core Framework (CF). This agreement allowed Spectrum to be the first COTS vendor to provide an SCA-enabled SDR development platform and associated tools. Harris’ dmTK is a commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) framework

Harris Website

Objective Interface Systems, Inc.

Spectrum has partnered with Objective Interface Systems, Inc. (OIS) to integrate and market OIS' ORBexpress® RT with Spectrum's SDR-4000 software defined radio signal processing platform. ORBexpress RT is a real-time CORBA Object Request Broker (ORB) that enables software developers to simplify the development of distributed software applications, build scalable, efficient and robust applications, and reduce overall development time, decreasing time-to-market for new products. The size, weight, power and performance attributes of the SDR-4000 integrated with ORBexpress make it ideally suited for power limited applications such as Tactical Military Communications ground vehicular and airborne radio applications.

OIS website

RF Engines Ltd.

Spectrum is a value-added reseller for RF Engines Limited (RFEL) field programmable gate array (FPGA) intellectual property (IP) cores. These cores offer front-end filtering technology for projects that require complex, real-time, wide and narrowband, flexible channelization at a lower cost and risk compared to starting internal development from scratch. RFEL is a UK based signal processing specialist, providing high specification signal processing cores, system on chip designs, and FPGA based board solutions for applications in the defence, communications and instrumentation markets.

RF Engines website

SBS Technologies Inc.

SBS Technologies builds high-performance embedded single board computers that enhance the speed, expandability, and flexibility of Spectrum products. In addition, SBS supplies IndustryPack(IP) mezzanine modules that provide functional flexibility and high I/O density to Spectrum products, like the Imola-PCI or the Monza.

SBS Technologies Website

Verari Systems Software Inc.

Formerly MPI Software Technology, Verari Systems Software Inc. is an award-winning, leading standards proponent and commercial developer of parallel programming environments and middleware for scalable computing, high performance embedded computing, and cluster computing.

Spectrum has partnered with Verari Systems Software to bring you vector and image processing libraries for the flexComm HCDR and SDR product families. These vector and image processing libraries are specifically optimized to the PowerPC G4 and are fully compliant with the VSIPL API standard, as published by the VSIPL forum. VSI/Pro contains optimized functions for common signal processing tasks such as FFT's, FIR filters, dot products and trigonometric/algebraic functions, maximizing code portability via an efficient programming interface.

Verari Systems Software Website

Wind River

Spectrum has partnered with Wind River, a worldwide leader in embedded software and services, to provide VxWORKS®, the most widely adopted RTOS in the embedded industry. Spectrum's software architecture is a key enabler of our subsystems, and Wind River's VxWORKS RTOS is a critical component. Partnering with Wind River allows Spectrum to provide integrated platforms for software defined radio and military/defense development applications and represents a key Wind River Value Added Reseller (VAR) relationship for the aerospace and defense industry. This agreement allows Spectrum to provide a more complete integrated technology solution that will help our customers accelerate their time to market.

Wind River Website

Industry Associations

Software Defined Radio Forum

The Software Defined Radio Forum (SDR Forum) is a non-profit, international, open membership organization created in 1996, to develop technical specifications and standards requirements that meet the diverse requirements for commercial wireless, defense, and civilian government applications of SDR.

SDR Forum members include organizations such as: BAE Systems, Boeing, EADS, Elektrobit, General Dynamics, Harris, Motorola, NEC, Qualcomm, Raytheon Systems, Rockwell Collins, Rohde & Schwarz, Thales, SPAWAR Systems Center and US Air Force Research Laboratory.

The SDR Forum acts as a conduit for end user needs to flow across the value chain from service providers to core technology vendors. As a leading provider and developer of SDR building blocks and products, Spectrum is actively involved in this forum.

SDR Forum Website

World Teleport Association

Since 1985, the World Teleport Association (WTA) has been the only trade association that focuses on the business of satellite communications from the ground up. At the core of our membership are the world's most innovative operators of teleports, from independents to multinationals, niche service providers to global hybrid carriers. They provide a broad and expanding range of value-added services, from origination of TV and radio channels to the integration and management of complex networks, and from IP-based content distribution to mobile telephony backhaul.

WTA Website

Canadian Association of Defence and Security Industries

CADSI is the voice for the Canadian defence and security industries. The Association exists to strengthen the relationship and dialogue between government and our industries and to maximize the contribution the members can make to national defence and security. As the primary advocate for the defence and security industries, CADSI represents the interests of industry to governments, politicians, the media, special interest groups, opinion leaders, and the public.

CADSI Website

Partner Quotes

"Wideband Networking Waveform (WNW) OFDM provides reliable, heterogeneous, wireless packet switched operations that are highly resistant to multipath dynamics that are common in a mobile environment. The waveform inherently offers good spectral containment and supports a diverse set of range requirements. The WNW OFDM waveform is the ideal data link for backbone communications and mobile ad hoc networking (MANET) for demanding applications such as video streaming. The ease of use with the SDR-4000 is an important milestone for achieving waveform proliferation without extensive development costs thereby realizing one of the JTRS visions."
- Mike Geile, Chief Technical Officer at L-3 Communications Nova Engineering

"Harris is delighted to team with Spectrum to provide comprehensive platforms for development of JTRS-compatible software defined radios. Spectrum provides a focused channel-to-market for our dmTK toolset and SCA Core Framework products on its subsystems for signals intelligence and military communications applications."
- Vince Kovarik, Advanced Programs Manager, Harris Government Communications Systems Division (GCSD)

"This is a partnership between two internationally recognized leaders in the field that will greatly benefit the industry in North America and around the world. We have worked informally with Spectrum for several years promoting software defined radio technology but it is great to be formally partnered with this Canadian firm."
- Claude Belisle, Acting-VP, Satellite Communications and Radio Propagation Research at CRC