SWE

Thanks to a very kind invitation from Vasu Kilaru (EPA National Exposure Research Laboratory), I attended the recent Air Sensors 2013 workshop at the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). My presentation was about the use of OGC standards for Big Data in the context of Sensors. I participated in a breakout session led by Sherri Hunt (EPA Star Program) that focused on challenges for the next 5 years. One of them was the need for better descriptions of sensors and data integration. Also, unexpectedly, for the first time I measured the CO in my breath: 2 PPM, happily reassuring to the world that I’m a non smoker and healthy.

OGC develops and publishes open standards not only for maps and geospatial analysis but also to help us share real time observed data from sensors. There is a very important activity within OGC called Sensor Web Enablement (SWE). The working groups within SWE advance standards that help plan, coordinate and implement sensors missions for everything from space-based Earth imaging and undersea ocean observatories to weather data and vehicle telematics. These standards play an essential role in using the Web to publish, discover, assess, access and manipulate sensors and live or stored sensor data, and in making the data useable in diverse applications.