Sensor Interoperability Activities

Introduction

This document lists the activities relating to sensor interoperability, starting with those proposed by the Alliance for Coastal Technologies Enabling Sensor Interoperability workshop, and the MMI Sensor Metadata Interoperability workshop. The document lists any known activities pursuing, or discussing, the described activities, as well as individuals interested in them.

Both workshop reports have been published online:

• Alliance for Coastal Technologies Enabling Sensor Interoperability Workshop Report
• Marine Metadata Interoperability Sensor Metadata Interoperability Workshop Report

The two organizations have submitted a proposal to the NSF INTEROP solicitation, to address some of these goals. If you are interested in learning more, please contact John Graybeal at MBARI (MMI), and/or Mario Tamburri at the University of Maryland (ACT).

Interoperability Activities Table

Activities Table

Reference	Activity Title	Description	Leads	Comments
SMI C1	CS Feature matrix	Create a feature matrix of content standard specifications	MMI	NOAA/IOOS may add resources
SMI C1.1	Characteristics/needs	Document key characteristics and best practices for their development
SMI C1.2	Relevant references	Point to relevant references on each specification
SMI C1.3	Ops best practices	Document best practices for filling out content specifications, minimal stds		CS developers should contribute
SMI C2	Mfg enrollment	Determine if there is a clear direction to enlist manufacturer support	MMi/ACT
SMI C3	Sensor description registry	Create a sensor description registry for storing sensor model descriptions.	TAMU/SCOOP	Consider ebxmlrr implementation.
SMI C3.1	Registry requirements/best practices	Define requirements and best practices for sensor registries.	Open Ontology Repository Initiatve?	ISO 19135 may fully address this.
SMI C4	Sensor description examples	Create working examples of sensor model descriptions, populate registry	LDEO-TAMU- PDC-WHOI-ACT
SMI C5	Specification validation templates	Create validating templates for each specification and put them in a sensor description template registry
SMI C6	Common sensor data model	developed a common data model in UML to represent data aspects of IEEE 1451, TransducerML, and SensorML	Matt Arrott
SMI C7	Consider spec integration	Analyze commingled interoperation between multiple specifications
SMI C7.1	Identify crosswalks	Identify crosswalks between existing content specifications.	IOOS DMAC MET (Bosch)
SMI C8	Sensor policy specification	Identify or create content specifications that allow the definition of policy for a given instrument
SMI C9	Model specification	Evaluate the availability of specifications for describing computational models, and enabling their interoperability with real-time data
SMI C10	Globally Unique Identifiers	Identify/recommend a system for creating globally unique identifiers to label: sensors; applications; metadata descriptions; data streams; and data sets.
SMI V1	Continue vocabulary services	Continue MMI's existing community service representing vocabulary terms with URIs	MMI; Open Ontology Repository Initiatve
SMI V2	Vocabulary registries	Create a hosted, moderated vocabulary registry per recommended best practices	Open Ontology Repository Initiatve	Reference ebxmlrr implementation.
SMI V2.1	Characterize best practices	Characterize best practices for creating and maintaining vocabularies		ISO 19135 may help address this.
SMI V2.2	Vocabulary feature matrix	Create a comparison checklist of existing vocabularies and document their characteristics	MMI
SMI V2.3	Vocabulary guidance	Provide guidance as to the best vocabularies for particular users/applications.	MMI
SMI V3	Community schema	Create a community schema for representing vocabularies and their terms
SMI V3.1	Incorporate external systems	Consider how Wikipedia or other systems might be referenced as an authority
SMI V3.2	Encode vocabularies	Encode the most important vocabularies within the community vocabulary schema.
SMI V4	Specify resolver service	Create a formal specification of requirements for a vocabulary resolver service.	Arko/Bermudez/Robin/Havens
SMI V5	Identify needed/available vocabularies	Identify vocabularies that are needed to characterize the sensor domain, and any existing instances	MMI/Graybeal	see MMI 1
SMI V5.1	Classify generality of vocabularies	Characterize vocabularies as specific to the sensor domain, or more general.
SMI V6	Define community maintenance process	Consider how to create a community process to agree on vocabularies.
SMI V6.1	Assess effect of generality	Assess how the characterization of the vocabulary (whether it is specific to sensors or more general) affects how its terms are incorporated.
SMI V6.2	Initiate community maintenance process	Initiate community processes to create needed vocabularies.		see MMI 1
ESI S.1	Create interoperability recommendations	Put together a list of recommendations for enabling instrument interoperability and distribute to instrument developers.
ESI S.2	Draft funding source list.	Draft a recommendation for funding sources to achieve instrument interoperability by developing/demonstrating technologies with manufacturers, operators, and cyberinfrastructure developers.
ESI S.3	Identify program managers and communicate key milestones.	Tell program managers these milestones for achieving instrument interoperability:

1. selection of a methodology for uniquely identifying an instrument
2. development of a common protocol for automatic instrument discovery
3. agreement on uniform methods for measurements
4. enablement of end user controlled power cycling
5. implementation of a registry component for IDs and attributes

ESI S.4 Form working groups of experts to develop requirements and strategies. Form working groups of experts to:

1. start articulating the value proposition for various stakeholders
2. develop requirements from a system engineering perspective
3. assure appropriate leverage and coordinating opportunities are being utilized
4. develop a strategy for moving current middleware capabilities to the instrument level
5. if deemed appropriate, take on additional tasks identified by this report

ESI S.5 Develop a canonical block diagram of instrument environment. Develop a canonical block diagram of instrument environment architecture, including the instrument and associated middleware and user interfaces. ESI S.6 Organize a plug-fest for oceanographic instruments. Vendors should organize the first “plug-fest” for oceanographic instruments in order to develop an interoperable instrument prototype. Vendors? Note current activity in Sensor Standards Harmonization Working Group ESI S.7 Define roles and responsibilities, identify areas of potential leverage, limit scope and prioritize. Define roles and responsibilities, scope, and priorities for creating interoperability.

1. instrument discovery and identification (self discovery, locating instruments, choosing the appropriate instrument)
2. instrument description
3. data content description
4. control interface description
5. data manipulation/processing/lineage

1. ACT?
2. ACT?
3. OGC or MMI?
4. ACT?
5. ?

ESI S.8 Develop a conceptual model of a universal instrument driver. Develop a conceptual model of a universal instrument driver that enables a wide variety of current and future applications to have control over instruments. ESI S.9 Develop UML representation of interoperability standards. Develop a unified modeling language representation of a block diagram of various interoperability standards (i.e. IEEE 1451, Sensor Web Enablement, etc.). See SMI C.6 ESI F.1 Create an ocean observing interoperability standards body. Establish an ocean observing interoperability standards body to address standards for (a) metadata, (b) commands, (c) protocols, (d) processes, (e) exclusivity, (f) naming authorities. ESI F.2 Establish a symposium on ocean observing system engineering, operations, and cyberinfrastructure. Establish an annual symposium on ocean observing system engineering and operations and cyber infrastructure. ESI F.3 Establish a research program for creating an online virtual ocean observing system. Establish a research program responsible for the development and maintenance of an online “virtual” ocean observing system for computer science research. ESI F.4 Develop instrumentation conformance standards. Develop instrumentation conformance standards. IOOS, ORION ESI F.5 Develop a standard method to deal with ocean observing system and environmental study resources. Develop a standard method for coordinating and prioritizing the allocation of sampling space and the delivery of ocean observing system resources such as power and bandwidth. ESI F.6 Develop a resource that identifies instrumentation that can be integrated. Develop a resource that enables discovery of composable instrumentation to provide the ability to conduct an experiment, and that allows instruments to work together for a common purpose. ESI F.7 Develop deployable application logic for any compliant ocean observing network. Develop deployable application logic for any compliant ocean observing network, accommodating disparate levels of network processing. ESI A.1 Provide interoperability recommendations discussion forum. Provide a discussion forum for assembling a set of recommendations for enabling instrument interoperability and distributing this information to the developers/manufacturers ACT ESI A.2 Provide registry for instrument identification and attributes. Provide a registry for instrument identification and associated attributes ACT ESI A.3 Facilitate standardization of instrument descriptions. Facilitate the standardization of instrument descriptions ACT ESI A.4 Define a standard control interface description. Help define a standard control interface description ACT ESI A.5 [See ESI F.6] Provide information that helps to identify plug-and-work and composable instrumentation in its “Searchable Technology Database” ACT MMI 1 Develop sensor/devices ontology Create an ontology for devices that can provide terms and URIs (e.g., for sensor type) MMI home page; see SMI V5, SMI V6.2