At the recent MILCOM 2005 event in Atlantic City NJ, Spectrum Signal Processing Inc., Burnaby BC, launched its next-generation flexComm SDR-4000 rugged 3U CompactPCI line of software defined radio (SDR) products.

The family leverages proven technology, integrating high-performance commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) hardware, software and services for the development and deployment of black-side wireless modem solutions for tactical military communications (MILCOM) systems.

It includes a high-speed dual transceiver module and high-performance processing engine available in conduction or air-cooled versions suitable for both harsh and benign environments. The product is tested in accordance with military standard MIL-STD-810, ensuring it is ready for deployment in many applications requiring ruggedization, Spectrum says.

The 3U cPCI form factor and flexible design make it suited for volume production.

"The SDR-4000 product family was developed to meet the needs of defense customers who are demanding smaller, more power-efficient systems in the field and is a logical extension to our SDR-3000 product line," Spectrum CEO Pascal Spothelfer says. "By offering the market a deployable rugged solution we are advancing in lock step with the SDR tactical MILCOM market, which is moving from the development stage to the field trial and deployment stages."

"Having already delivered this industry leading product to multiple customers puts us in a very strong position in this market," he adds.

Architected specifically for rugged tactical MILCOM applications, the unit delivers high-speed, low latency deterministic data through an innovative product design that combines heterogeneous processing elements, high-speed communication fabrics and a comprehensive software environment suitable for Software Communications Architecture (SCA) compliant waveforms.

"We designed the SDR-4000 as a tactical MILCOM solution that our customers can take from their lab to the field," Mark Briggs, Spectrum Vice President of Marketing, says. "Developers can immediately deploy our off-the-shelf SDR-4000 offering, while concurrently leveraging Spectrum's engineering services to refine the product to meet their precise size, weight, power consumption and production cost targets."

"This optimization service is part of Spectrum's modified COTS program, that is crucial for meeting the specific needs of harsh environments and large scale production," he adds.

The two main hardware components within the SDR-4000 series are the PRO-4600 SDR modem processing engine and the XMC-3321 dual-transceiver I/O mezzanine card. The system combines the processing power of the Xilinx Virtex-4, the Freescale PowerQUICC III PowerPC and Texas Instruments' TMS320C64x digital signal processor elements into a single system.

These three processors are required to implement the diverse set of waveforms typically employed in military communications systems, Spectrum says. Together, they provide a wireless modem that accommodates two channels per slot.

The package includes Spectrum's quicComm software, a hardware abstraction layer that facilitates platform programming and code portability. It allows applications developed on the SDR-3000 to be readily ported to the SDR-4000.

Also provided are comprehensive software examples that demonstrate application data flows to simplify and accelerate development.