New software suite provides industry with complete solution for SDR development

OTTAWA, Ontario - November 16, 2004 - The Communications Research Centre Canada (CRC), an agency of Industry Canada, announces the release of its new software suite that will help manufacturers in Canada and around the world accelerate the roll out of new Software Defined Radio (SDR) technology. The SCARI Software Suite provides companies with a complete and easy-to-use blueprint for designing and implementing SDR, which will help to ensure interoperability between SDR devices from different manufacturers.

Developed by CRC engineers, the software suite is another example of leading edge technology developed by a Canadian government laboratory and transferred to the private sector.

"CRC has made a strategic investment in a forward-looking technology that will ensure that military and public safety organizations have faster access to radios that are interoperable and hence can communicate with each other." says Dr. Veena Rawat, Acting President of CRC. "The product released today demonstrates CRC's longstanding commitment to excellence in the telecommunications field."

The SCARI Software Suite provides a complete software solution for implementing SDR. It is based on version 3.0 of the Software Communications Architecture (SCA) specifications published by the U.S. Department of Defence Joint Tactical Radio System (JTRS). Two high-performance implementations are offered under a licence agreement supporting Linux and Green Hills Integrity operating systems as well as OIS'ORBexpress and THE ACE ORB(TAO). Implementations for other software environments are under development.

Along with the SCA implementations, the SCARI Software Suite includes several software tools that greatly simplify the complete SDR development life cycle, from the creation of SCA components to assembly in applications or nodes and debugging and operation of the radio. These tools are platform independent.

"The SCARI Software Suite has been extremely useful for the development of our Software Defined Radio," says Naim Batani, President of ISR Technologies, a leading-edge SDR company based in Montreal. "Both the SCA implementation and the development tools have reduced our time-to-market, simplified our development and optimized performance of the technology. The technical support provided by CRC engineers has also been very useful."

SDR is now well established within the military as the radio technology of the future. It is able to accommodate any communications protocol and frequency band simply by downloading the appropriate software. The SCARI Software Suite will help radio manufacturers lower costs and reduce the time-to-market of this enabling technology to cellular phone companies, search and rescue organizations and other public safety sectors.

About the Communications Research Centre Canada (CRC)

CRC is the Canadian government's primary laboratory for research and development (R&D) in advanced telecommunications. R&D is used for public policy purposes and to strengthen the Canadian economy through technology and knowledge transfer. Under its four research branches (Terrestrial Wireless, Satellite Communications and Radio Propagation Research, Broadband Network Technologies and Broadcast Technology), CRC specializes in taking an interdisciplinary approach to longer-term R&D in wireless systems, radio fundamentals, communication networks, photonics and interactive multimedia. More information about CRC is available at: www.crc.gc.ca.

For more information contact:

Louise Guay, Director
Communications & Promotion
Communications Research Centre Canada (CRC)
t: 613.991.6577
e: louise.guay@crc.gc.ca