SCA-based component framework for software defined radio

SCA (Software Communication Architecture), which has been adopted as a SDR (Software Defined Radio) Forum standard, provides a framework that successfully exploits common design patterns of embedded systems software. However, the SCA is inadequate as a component framework since it does not explicitly specify (1) a component model that defines how to express a component interface and how to implement it, (2) a package model that defines what and how to package in deployment units, and (3) a deployment model that defines the deployment environment and deployment process. We propose a SCA-based component framework for SDR. Specifically, we present: (1) a component model that defines a component as a specialized CORBA object that implements object management functionality, (2) a package model exploiting the existing XML descriptors of the SCA, and (3) a deployment model that defines a SCA-based deployment environment with a boot-up process to restore the deployment state and a deployment process supporting lazy application instantiation and dynamic component replacement.