5.2.2 What is Sensor Web Enablement?
From Geostandards
5 Sensor Web Enablement
5.1 Scope of the course
5.2 Introduction to SWE
- 5.2.1 Sensor Networks
- 5.2.2 What is Sensor Web Enablement?
- 5.2.3 Overview of the SWE Architecture
- 5.2.4 Benefits of SWE
- 5.4.1 Sensor Observation Service
- 5.4.2 Sensor Planning Service
- 5.4.3 Sensor Alert Service
- 5.4.4 Sensor Discovery
Contents |
Why do we need SWE?
Sensor networks are an important means for capturing real time information about a nearly unlimited number of environmental phenomena. Eventually the most important type of time-variant geoinformation is sensor data. In a variety of use cases the availability of data sets gathered by sensors is essential, for instances in the case of risk management. In order to make use of such a big range of very heterogeneously structured information the integration into application systems becomes very important. As spatial data infrastructures (SDI) are well established for building distributed applications in the geospatial domain, it is of special importance to link them with sensors and sensor data. Traditional Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) services allow you to request sensor data, but only in a limited manner:
- A of the air temperature can be requested from a Web Map Service (WMS) for a certain area of interest and point in time.
- Raster data like satellite images or results of dispersion models can be accessed via the Web Coverage Service (WCS).
- Vector data, say way points from vehicle tracking might be provided by a Web Feature Service (WFS).
But a generic framework for sensor data integration into SDIs was missing. Thus it was obvious to extend the SDI specifications by a framework for integrating sensors into SDIs. Therefore the OGC founded the Sensor Web Enablement (SWE) initiative which is developing standards for access to and control of sensors and sensor networks via the Internet. The goal of SWE is to enable all types of internet-accessible sensors to be accessible and, where applicable, controllable via the world wide web.
What are the required functions?
The current situation of sensor networks is that they are developed around different communities of sensor types and user types, with each community relying on its own stovepipe system for discovery, accessing observations, receiving alerts, and tasking sensor systems. The integration of a new sensor into those systems is a highly expensive task, due to the incompatible encodings and services. In order to realize the vision of a 'plug-and-play' web-based sensor network, the following functionality is required:
- Discovery of sensors and sensor data that meet applications' or users' immediate needs;
- Determination of sensors' capabilities and quality of measurements;
- Access to sensor parameters that allow software to process observations automatically;
- Access to real-time measurements and time series in standardized encodings;
- Tasking of sensors and simulations to acquire observations of interest;
- Subscription to and publishing of alerts to be issued by sensors based upon certain criteria (Event based notification).
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