Excerpts from "Instruments interface standards for interoperable ocean sensor networks"

Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Interoperable data management and instrument control experiences at OBSEA

In this article we describe our experiences with interoperable data management and instrument control standards in the Western Mediterranean Cabled Observatory, OBSEA (www.obsea.es) (Figure 1). The SARTI research group of the Technical University of Catalonia in Vilanova i la Geltrú is in charge of OBSEA observatory development. SARTI collaborated with the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) to explore interoperability issues within the ESONET project. One of the strong demands of ESONET is that a real-time data web interface from online observatories is needed. In order to do so, online data are urgently needed, and some proposed standards must be applied to ensure interoperability between instruments and data of multiple european observatories.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Interoperable data management and instrument control experiences at OBSEA

In this article we describe our experiences with interoperable data management and instrument control standards in the Western Mediterranean Cabled Observatory, OBSEA (www.obsea.es) (Figure 1). The SARTI research group of the Technical University of Catalonia in Vilanova i la Geltrú is in charge of OBSEA observatory development. SARTI collaborated with the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) to explore interoperability issues within the ESONET project. One of the strong demands of ESONET is that a real-time data web interface from online observatories is needed. In order to do so, online data are urgently needed, and some proposed standards must be applied to ensure interoperability between instruments and data of multiple european observatories.Peer Reviewe

Interoperable data management and instrument control experiences at OBSEA

In this article we describe our experiences with interoperable data management and instrument control standards in the Western Mediterranean Cabled Observatory, OBSEA (www.obsea.es) (Figure 1). The SARTI research group of the Technical University of Catalonia in Vilanova i la Geltrú is in charge of OBSEA observatory development. SARTI collaborated with the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) to explore interoperability issues within the ESONET project. One of the strong demands of ESONET is that a real-time data web interface from online observatories is needed. In order to do so, online data are urgently needed, and some proposed standards must be applied to ensure interoperability between instruments and data of multiple european observatories.Peer Reviewe

OGC standards for end-to-end sensor network integration

Many sensor networks have been deployed to monitor Earth's environment, and more are planned for the future. Environmental sensors have continuously improved by becoming smaller, cheaper, more intelligent, and more reliable. But due to the large number of sensor manufacturers and accompanying protocols, integrating diverse sensors into observing systems is not straightforward, requiring development of driver software and manual tedious configuration. Use of standard protocols and formats can improve and automate the process of sensor installation, operation, and data processing. The Open Geospatial Consortium's Sensor Web Enablement (SWE) initiative defines standards which make sensors available over the Web through standardized formats and Web Service interfaces by hiding the heterogeneity of sensor protocols from the application layer. Current SWE standards do not deal with actual sensor protocols, and the connection between sensors and SWE services is usually established by manually adapting the internals of the SWE service implementation to the specific sensor interface. Such sensor "drivers" have to be built for each kind of sensor interface, which leads to extensive efforts in developing large-scale systems. To tackle this issue we have developed a model for Sensor Interface Descriptors (SID) which enables the declarative description of sensor interfaces, including the definition of the communication protocol, sensor commands, processing steps and metadata association. The model is designed as a profile and extension of OGC SWE's Sensor Model Language standard. In this model, a SID is defined in XML for each kind of sensor protocol. SID instances for particular sensor types can be reused in different scenarios and can be shared among user communities. A SID interpreter can be built which translates between various sensor protocols and SWE protocols, hence closing the described interoperability gap. The SID interpreter is independent of any particular sensor technology, and can communicate with any sensor whose protocol can be described by a SID. The SID interpreter transfers retrieved sensor data to a Sensor Observation Service, and transforms tasks submitted to a Sensor Planning Service to actual sensor commands. The proposed SWE PUCK protocol complements SID by providing a standard way to associate a sensor with a SID, thereby completely automating the sensor integration process. PUCK protocol is implemented in sensor firmware, and provides a means to retrieve a universally unique identifer, metadata and other information from the device itself through its communication interface. Thus the SID interpreter can retrieve a SID directly from the sensor through PUCK protocol. Alternatively the interpreter can retrieve the sensor’s SID from an external source, based on the unique sensor ID provided by PUCK protocol. In this presentation, we describe the end-to-end integration of several commercial oceanographic instruments into a sensor network using PUCK, SID and SWE services. We also present a user-friendly, graphical tool to generate SIDs and tools to visualize sensor dataPeer ReviewedPostprint (published version

OGC standards for end-to-end sensor network integration

Many sensor networks have been deployed to monitor Earth's environment, and more are planned for the future. Environmental sensors have continuously improved by becoming smaller, cheaper, more intelligent, and more reliable. But due to the large number of sensor manufacturers and accompanying protocols, integrating diverse sensors into observing systems is not straightforward, requiring development of driver software and manual tedious configuration. Use of standard protocols and formats can improve and automate the process of sensor installation, operation, and data processing. The Open Geospatial Consortium's Sensor Web Enablement (SWE) initiative defines standards which make sensors available over the Web through standardized formats and Web Service interfaces by hiding the heterogeneity of sensor protocols from the application layer. Current SWE standards do not deal with actual sensor protocols, and the connection between sensors and SWE services is usually established by manually adapting the internals of the SWE service implementation to the specific sensor interface. Such sensor "drivers" have to be built for each kind of sensor interface, which leads to extensive efforts in developing large-scale systems. To tackle this issue we have developed a model for Sensor Interface Descriptors (SID) which enables the declarative description of sensor interfaces, including the definition of the communication protocol, sensor commands, processing steps and metadata association. The model is designed as a profile and extension of OGC SWE's Sensor Model Language standard. In this model, a SID is defined in XML for each kind of sensor protocol. SID instances for particular sensor types can be reused in different scenarios and can be shared among user communities. A SID interpreter can be built which translates between various sensor protocols and SWE protocols, hence closing the described interoperability gap. The SID interpreter is independent of any particular sensor technology, and can communicate with any sensor whose protocol can be described by a SID. The SID interpreter transfers retrieved sensor data to a Sensor Observation Service, and transforms tasks submitted to a Sensor Planning Service to actual sensor commands. The proposed SWE PUCK protocol complements SID by providing a standard way to associate a sensor with a SID, thereby completely automating the sensor integration process. PUCK protocol is implemented in sensor firmware, and provides a means to retrieve a universally unique identifer, metadata and other information from the device itself through its communication interface. Thus the SID interpreter can retrieve a SID directly from the sensor through PUCK protocol. Alternatively the interpreter can retrieve the sensor’s SID from an external source, based on the unique sensor ID provided by PUCK protocol. In this presentation, we describe the end-to-end integration of several commercial oceanographic instruments into a sensor network using PUCK, SID and SWE services. We also present a user-friendly, graphical tool to generate SIDs and tools to visualize sensor dataPeer Reviewe

OGC standards for end-to-end sensor network integration

Many sensor networks have been deployed to monitor Earth's environment, and more are planned for the future. Environmental sensors have continuously improved by becoming smaller, cheaper, more intelligent, and more reliable. But due to the large number of sensor manufacturers and accompanying protocols, integrating diverse sensors into observing systems is not straightforward, requiring development of driver software and manual tedious configuration. Use of standard protocols and formats can improve and automate the process of sensor installation, operation, and data processing. The Open Geospatial Consortium's Sensor Web Enablement (SWE) initiative defines standards which make sensors available over the Web through standardized formats and Web Service interfaces by hiding the heterogeneity of sensor protocols from the application layer. Current SWE standards do not deal with actual sensor protocols, and the connection between sensors and SWE services is usually established by manually adapting the internals of the SWE service implementation to the specific sensor interface. Such sensor "drivers" have to be built for each kind of sensor interface, which leads to extensive efforts in developing large-scale systems. To tackle this issue we have developed a model for Sensor Interface Descriptors (SID) which enables the declarative description of sensor interfaces, including the definition of the communication protocol, sensor commands, processing steps and metadata association. The model is designed as a profile and extension of OGC SWE's Sensor Model Language standard. In this model, a SID is defined in XML for each kind of sensor protocol. SID instances for particular sensor types can be reused in different scenarios and can be shared among user communities. A SID interpreter can be built which translates between various sensor protocols and SWE protocols, hence closing the described interoperability gap. The SID interpreter is independent of any particular sensor technology, and can communicate with any sensor whose protocol can be described by a SID. The SID interpreter transfers retrieved sensor data to a Sensor Observation Service, and transforms tasks submitted to a Sensor Planning Service to actual sensor commands. The proposed SWE PUCK protocol complements SID by providing a standard way to associate a sensor with a SID, thereby completely automating the sensor integration process. PUCK protocol is implemented in sensor firmware, and provides a means to retrieve a universally unique identifer, metadata and other information from the device itself through its communication interface. Thus the SID interpreter can retrieve a SID directly from the sensor through PUCK protocol. Alternatively the interpreter can retrieve the sensor’s SID from an external source, based on the unique sensor ID provided by PUCK protocol. In this presentation, we describe the end-to-end integration of several commercial oceanographic instruments into a sensor network using PUCK, SID and SWE services. We also present a user-friendly, graphical tool to generate SIDs and tools to visualize sensor dataPeer Reviewe

Evaluation of MBari puck protocol for interoperable ocean observatories

IEEE-1451[1] and OGC Sensor Web Enablement (OGC SWE)[2] define standard protocols to operate instruments, including methods to calibrate, configure, trigger data acquisition, and retrieve instrument data based on specified temporal and geospatial criteria. These standards also provide standard ways to describe instrument capabilities, properties, and data structures produced by the instrument. These standard operational protocols and descriptions enable observing systems to manage very diverse instruments as well as to acquire, process, and interpret their data in a uniform and automated manner. We refer to this property as “instrument interoperability”. This paper describes integration and evaluation of MBARI PUCK protocol [3] within different observatories including OBSEA [4,5] in Spain, the ESONET test-bed in Germany, and the SmartBay observatory in Canada.Peer Reviewe