A technical overview of the International Radio Security Service API for tactical radios

The Joint Program Executive Office (JPEO) Joint Tactical Radio System (JTRS) established a new paradigm for software definable radios with their release of the Software Communications Architecture (SCA) Specification [1]. This specification details requirements and outlines a framework for software based radio platforms. The intentions of this specification are to foster portability of waveform applications between divergent radio platforms. However, beyond an initial historical draft, the JTRS program currently has no provisions for a publically available security API that the broader internationally community can use to develop portable waveforms. Recognizing a lack of an internationally available security APIs for SCA based radios, the Wireless Innovation Forum (WInnF) has developed a security API called the International Radio Security Services (IRSS) API to fill this gap. This paper introduces and presents a technical overview of the major interfaces comprising the IRSS API. These interfaces evolved through the analysis of legacy narrowband streaming WF use cases and wideband networking WF use cases. Additionally, examples of how radio manufactures can map the API to representative military and government radio architectures/topologies is presented.