Semantic integration of wireless sensor networks into open geospatial consortium sensor observation service to access and share environmental monitoring systems

Integrating heterogeneous wireless sensor networks with the Sensor Web will increase the utilisation of sensors and facilitate the sharing of their observations in environmental monitoring. A centralised framework was introduced for the semantic integration of heterogeneous sensors and their observations into open geospatial consortium sensor observation services (SOSs). An ontology called 1451 ontology was created following IEEE 1451 standards. The 1451 ontology not only describes the sensor properties and observations, but it also specifies the communication interface and protocol. Another ontology called SOS data ontology was also created to represent the feature of interest of the SOS. A matching rule was established to map the two created ontologies with the aim of creating a uniform collaboration of sensors scattered worldwide through the Sensor web. A case study of soil temperature sensor and three-dimensional digital compass shows that sensors can actively register themselves and insert observations into the SOS through the developed programme embedded in terminal devices and the ontology matching module of the web. A semantic link between the IEEE 1451 specifications and the SOS operations will enable the spatially distributed sensors to publish their information in a unified way and to work cooperatively in real-time for significant environmental monitoring.