The Wireless Innovation Forum Announces Completion of an Energy Management API Standard for Use in System and Subsystem Integration

The Wireless Innovation Forum (WInnForum), a non-profit international industry association dedicated to driving the future of radio communications and systems worldwide, announced today the release of a new standard addressing power management. The document, WINNF-TS-3001 Power Management API, provides a means for radio platforms to make intelligent decisions about the available system energy and where/how to consume that energy to maximize operational goals. This allows software defined radio (SDR) manufacturers to build high bandwidth, high data rate, low Size Weight and Power (SWaP) radios where battery life is synonymous with mission success, leading to more robust SDR systems.

“Since power is the largest expense of warehouse scale computing and one of the largest costs of supporting forces deployed OCONUS, this API has the potential to save hundreds of millions of dollars to billions of dollars in energy costs in the next decade,” said Joe Mitola, the originator of SDR and contributor to the standard.

The document was produced by the WInnForum’s Software Defined Systems (SDS) Committee Energy Management Task Group, led by chair Bruce Fette of Institute for Defense Analyes. It was created for military tactical radio communications suppliers, tactical radio communications software developers, and software development tool providers who are participating in or supporting tactical radio waveform development onto software defined radio or cognitive radio platforms and focuses on emerging tactical communications energy demands driven by the need for standardized energy management and energy efficiency mechanisms, making SDRs competitive with custom designed radios in energy efficiency.

From March 2017 through June 2018 members of the SDS Committee’s Energy Management Task Group developed the document which provides industry standard means and methods to the system integration community for the communications equipment and other subsystems to manage performance versus energy consumption tradeoffs resulting in a match of subsystem resources to current mission needs. This in turn enables the system to maximize mission duration and success rate. Each subsystem component can share its understanding of current energy needs, modes of operation, and can shift energy amongst subsystems as needed, thus matching the dynamic changes of subsystems throughout various phases of a mission.

The document provides background information on the considerations of the API as well as use cases and the IDL itself. You can download it here: http://bit.ly/WInnForum-EMAPI.

Supported by platinum sponsors Motorola Solutions, Leonardo, and Thales, WInnForum has several working groups focusing on projects related to SCA, Software Defined Systems and Spectrum Innovation. Visit http://www.WirelessInnovation.org to learn more. Individuals or organizations wishing to participate in WInnForum Working Groups should contact Lee Pucker at Lee.Pucker@WirelessInnovation.org.

About the Wireless Innovation Forum

Established in 1996, The Wireless Innovation Forum (SDR Forum Version 2.0) is a non-profit mutual benefit corporation dedicated to advocating for spectrum innovation and advancing radio technologies that support essential or critical communications worldwide. Members bring a broad base of experience in Software Defined Radio (SDR), Cognitive Radio(CR) and Dynamic Spectrum Access (DSA) technologies in diverse markets and at all levels of the wireless value chain to address emerging wireless communications requirements. To learn more about The Wireless Innovation Forum, its meetings and membership benefits, visit www.WirelessInnovation.org.

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