Semantic interoperability of sensor data with volunteered geographic information: A unified model

Abstract

The increasing availability of sensor devices has resulted in important volumes of sensor data, which has raised the issue of making these data fully discoverable andinterpretable by applications and end-users. The idea of OGC Sensor Web Enablement (SWE) has addressed this issue by proposing a set of standards to enable accessibility ofsensor data over the Web. Similarly, there is a growing interest in volunteered geographic information (VGI). Considering that several researchers have highlighted the potential ofthis new type of information as a complement to existing, "traditional" data, it becomes important to develop frameworks to support the integration of VGI from several sourcesand with other types of data. In this paper, we make a first step in this direction by proposing a framework for the semantic interoperability of sensor data and VGI. Afterhaving performed an investigation of the types of VGI applications, we have developed a conceptual model of VGI aligned with relevant ISO standards for describing geospatialfeatures. The purpose of this model is to support the generation of common descriptions for VGI applications, which will act as interfaces to higher-level services, such as discoveryand reasoning services, in order to be exploited in conjunction with sensor data by client applications. This process is described through architecture for semantic interoperability ofsensor data and VGI that we have developed and that we intend to use to set guidelines for future research on integration of VGI in sensor data cyberinfrastructures. We illustrate the possibilities created by the proposed framework with a description of the various servicesand interfaces required to implement the framework.