WHAT IS SOSA?
The SOSA Approach
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This approach establishes guidelines for Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Cyber, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (C5ISR) systems. The objective is to allow flexibility in the selection and acquisition of sensors and subsystems that provide sensor data collection, processing, exploitation, communication, and related functions over the full life cycle of the C5ISR system.
The SOSA Technical Standard defines the SOSA Reference Architecture and creates a common framework for transitioning sensor systems to an open architecture enabling rapid, affordable, cross-platform capability advancements and reducing development and integration costs for military capabilities as well as faster time to field.
WHAT IS THE SOSA CONSORTIUM?
The SOSA Consortium
The SOSA Consortium was established to develop an open technical standard and best practices for sensors used in military and commercial electronic systems. It was created through a collaboration among government, industry, and academia, with strong participation and contributions from the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD)—including the Army, Navy, and Air Force—alongside industry, academic institutions, and other government organizations.
Skayl is a founding member of the SOSA Consortium and currently holds a leadership position as Lead of the Data Model Sub-Committee.
HOW SKAYL CAN HELP
SOSA Conformance
Skayl accelerates SOSA conformance by providing a Configurable Infrastructure Capability (CinC) that delivers standards-aligned Transport Services (TS) across modular systems. By abstracting and automating transport logic, Skayl eliminates the need for custom integration code between components, enabling faster development, easier substitution of payloads, and seamless reuse across platforms - all core principles of SOSA. CinC acts as an integration backplane, allowing components to communicate regardless of their underlying transport protocols, while maintaining strict conformance with SOSA technical standards.
Through its model-driven approach, Skayl enables “conformance by construction.” Integration logic is defined declaratively using tools that validate compliance with SOSA interface definitions, reducing the risk of errors and non-conformant behavior. This architecture-first approach simplifies testbed development, accelerates prototyping, and ensures that system behavior remains predictable and aligned with SOSA profiles - even as configurations change or scale. Skayl’s CinC infrastructure can also support automated generation of integration artifacts needed for conformance validation and documentation.
Additionally, Skayl supports the reuse of certification artifacts, addressing the Army’s and SOSA’s shared goals of modularity, affordability, and rapid fielding. By isolating platform-specific dependencies and supporting delta-certifiable software components, Skayl makes it possible to reuse infrastructure and integration logic across programs with minimal rework. This enables defense contractors and integrators to not only meet SOSA conformance requirements but to do so faster, with lower cost and greater agility across the acquisition lifecycle.