SDR development tool is integrated toolchain

The Spectra PE software development tool for software-defined radio offers superior levels of productivity and correctness for specific application domains.

PrismTech has announced the GA release of its Spectra PE software development tool for software-defined radio (SDR) developers.

Spectra PE is an example of a new class of software development tools that offer superior levels of productivity and correctness for specific application domains.

By combining the latest technologies in application metamodelling, domain-specific languages and automatic source-code generation, testing and documentation, Spectra tools provide a first-to-market COTS example of the greatest advance in software development tooling since the adoption of object-oriented languages and UML in the mid-1990s.

Systems engineers and software developers can now work collaboratively on the same high-level application component models (e.g of a waveform or radio platform) to eradicate errors at design time (rather than compile time) and with confidence that the tools will auto-generate correct, efficient and documented source code which is compliant with relevant open standards (as required).

Furthermore, application modifications are easily implemented at the model level, with the new source code again automatically generated by the tool.

Overall this new generation of tools can improve SDR code development productivity by up to 100x (man-hours instead of man-months) and inherently ensure correctness and standards-compliance.

Spectra PE has been developed by a team of acknowledged world-class experts in SDR software development and users of Spectra PE can thus benefit from that experience and focus on their radio product (application value-add) rather than software engineering concepts and complexities.

Spectra PE raises the bar in many ways and is clearly differentiated from generic IT modelling and code generation tools by its built-in application-domain-specific intelligence.

This domain-specific functionality imposes certain limitations on the user, but for good reason.

By constraining the user to correctly apply design rules the tool ensures design correctness and thus that the generated code will be standards compliant, efficient and implementable.

Just as in a handheld calculator, the intelligence in the tool constrains input to ensure correctness of output.

Spectra supports truly model-driven development paradigms, meaning all the modelling options are constrained by the domain, so you can only produce viable, domain-compliant waveform and platform deployment models using Spectra.

Other tool solutions use test scripts to validate each model produced, resulting in needless iterations of modelling because the models themselves are not fully controlled by the domain and thus many flawed designs can be produced before a set of valid options is collected for best choice for deployment considerations.

Spectra's modelling interface provides multiple scalability features for very large waveforms, including layered connection views that can be displayed in any combination of connection layers or components.

Other tools offer only one view of waveform deployment models that quickly becomes visually incomprehensible for more complex waveforms.

Spectra provides side-by-side modelling views, allowing visual design comparison of waveform and platform model options.

Spectra supports drag-and-drop functionality, not only for each of the waveform modelling and the platform modelling views, but also between the two modelling views.

Waveform developers can model their waveform and then drag it onto the platform modelling environment to continue the end-to-end waveform design and deployment process in a seamless fashion.

Code and XML is complete, not a template, and can be used as generated to build the waveform infrastructure and test it.

No editing or custom programming is required.

No platform-specific libraries are used in Spectra-generated code to provide maximum portability and reduce dependencies on platform changes.

Elimination of platform-specific code make Spectra generated code 100% IP owned by the customer.

SCA code as generated is portable across any SCA-compliant ORB and Core Framework.

Partially compliant platforms require only very minor edits to the generated code.

Spectra code generators out of the box can be targeted for multiple RTOSs: Integrity, LynxOS, VxWorks, Linux etc Automatic generation of a full test framework allows off-target infrastructure testing of waveforms to fully test the infrastructure modelled and generated using Spectra.

Complete test code is generated that exercises both inbound and out of bound constraints and properties applied to the waveform model, and ensures that the infrastructure responds to all data traffic and conditions in an SCA-compliant fashion.

A complete test framework to exercise the SCA requirements is required to guarantee SCA compliance.

Domain-driven debugging functionality allows developers to associate breakpoints and specific feedback with waveform and deployment models to facilitate controlled testing and debugging processes and expedite the QA cycle.

In application reverse engineering, Spectra generates a best case model, even from not well-formed XML, and reports errors in the XML and suggests improvements.

Other tools require that you get the XML formed to the tool's XML well-formed specification before that tool can generate a model, requiring editing existing waveform domain profiles repeatedly until they are accepted by the tool for model generation.

It reverse engineers the infrastructure code from the waveform functionality, and provides forward engineering features to generate SCA-compliant infrastructure code and rebuilding the waveform functionality.

Spectra is built using the Eclipse integrated development environment (IDE), an industry-standard launched by IBM and heavily supported with rapid adoption by the rest of the tool and application industry.

The benefits of Spectra's use of Eclipse include seamless integration with other SDR development, test and deployment tools.

Many SDR and RTOS tools offer or plan to support Eclipse frameworks and or plug-ins, allowing designers and developers to collaborate in one common workspace using the variety of tools required for end-to-end SDR development.

Spectra, through Eclipse, supports multiple perspectives regarding modelling views, build environments, test environments, and other interfaces that are otherwise only accessible by moving manually to each environment's user interface, and copying code and models around manually.

Spectra provides the multiple perspectives in one workspace that allow users to view different models and related code, build and design artifacts side by side.

No other SDR development tool on the market offers this seamless integrated toolchain.

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