Empirical study of sensor observation services server instances

Abstract

The number of Sensor Observation Service (SOS) instances available online has been increasing in the last few years. The SOS specification standardises interfaces and data formats for exchanging sensor-related information between information providers and consumers. SOS, in conjunction with other specifications in the Sensor Web Enablement initiative, attempts to realise the Sensor Web vision, a worldwide system where sensor networks of any kind are interconnected. In this paper, we present an empirical study of actual instances of servers implementing SOS. The study focuses mostly in which parts of the specification are more frequently included in real implementations and how exchanged messages follow the structure defined by XML Schema files. Our findings can be of practical use when implementing servers and clients based on the SOS specification, as they can be optimized for common scenarios. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2011.