Declarative Sensor Interface Descriptors for the Sensor Web

The Sensor Web Enablement (SWE) initiative of the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) defines standards for Web Service interfaces and data encodings usable as building blocks to implement a Sensor Web. These standards encapsulate sensors for web-based discovery, tasking and access. In recent years, SWE has been applied in a multitude of projects, demonstrating its suitability in real world scenarios. However, there is still a fundamental challenge to be tackled. While SWE enables interoperability with the upper application layer, the connection between SWE and the underlying sensor layer and its heterogeneous protocols is not yet sufficiently described. To close this gap, a declarative model for Sensor Interface Descriptors (SID) based on OGC’s SensorML standard is presented here. An SID for a particular sensor enables a so called SID interpreter to translate between the communication protocol of the sensor and the Sensor Web. We have developed a generic SID interpreter capable of connecting sensors to Sensor Observation Services and Sensor Planning Services based on their SID. For illustration, an SID describing a radiation detector of the German Federal Office for Radiation Protection is presented and used for integration with the SWE services. The presented approach of SIDs is the basis for realizing our vision of sensor plug & play and will make sensors on-the-fly available on the Sensor Web.