A sensor capability information model under Geospatial Sensor Web environment

For the vast and heterogeneous sensor resources of the Geospatial Sensor Web, discovery and utilization of these sensors for cooperative observation are often considered inaccurate, incomplete and time-lagged. This is in a large part due to a lack of a standard, comprehensive, observation capability contained sensor information model. A sensor information model covering the capabilities around the sensor and sensor system plays an important role in making these sensors sharable and interoperable for precise discovery and effective cooperative observation. In this paper, a Sensor Capability Information Model (SCIM) is proposed. The fundamental SCIM framework and its basic elements are formulated through analyzing the requirements and criteria for sensor capabilities information, generalizing and extracting from the existing geospatial or sensor-related metadata standards. SCIM mainly consists of the core observation capability of a sensor, as well as the computational capability, transmission capability, energy endurance capability and environmental adaptability capability. OGC Sensor Model Language (SensorML) is utilized as the expression form of the proposed SCIM. The versatility of the proposed information model is verified by three different types of earth observation sensors.