Editing Software-defined radio (section)

== Military usage ==

=== United States ===
The [[Joint Tactical Radio System]] (JTRS) was a program of the US military to produce radios that provide flexible and interoperable communications. Examples of radio terminals that require support include hand-held, vehicular, airborne and dismounted radios, as well as base-stations (fixed and maritime).

This goal is achieved through the use of SDR systems based on an internationally endorsed open [[Software Communications Architecture]] (SCA). This standard uses [[CORBA]] on [[POSIX]] operating systems to coordinate various software modules.

The program is providing a flexible new approach to meet diverse soldier communications needs through software programmable radio technology. All functionality and expandability is built upon the SCA.

The SCA, despite its military origin, is under evaluation by commercial radio vendors for applicability in their domains. The adoption of general-purpose SDR frameworks outside of military, intelligence, experimental and amateur uses, however, is inherently hampered by the fact that civilian users can more easily settle with a fixed architecture, optimized for a specific function, and as such more economical in mass market applications. Still, software defined radio's inherent flexibility can yield substantial benefits in the longer run, once the fixed costs of implementing it have gone down enough to overtake the cost of iterated redesign of purpose built systems. This then explains the increasing commercial interest in the technology.

SCA-based infrastructure software and rapid development tools for SDR education and research are provided by the Open Source SCA Implementation{{snd}} Embedded (OSSIE<ref>{{cite web|url=http://ossie.wireless.vt.edu|title=OSSIE|work=vt.edu|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090312002811/http://ossie.wireless.vt.edu/|archive-date=2009-03-12}}</ref>) project. The Wireless Innovation Forum funded the SCA Reference Implementation project, an open source implementation of the SCA specification. ([[Software Communications Architecture Reference Implementation|SCARI]]) can be downloaded for free.