Progress Report – OGC SensorThings API Part II – Tasking

At SensorUp, we have been busy working on the design and development of the tasking part of the OGC SensorThings API. In the first week of December 2016, Dr. Steve Liang led the SensorThings API Standard Working Group meeting as part of the OGC Technical Committee (TC) meeting in Taichung, Taiwan.  The OGC TC meeting agenda is available here (click me).

In the SensorThings SWG meeting we discussed the latest data model, i.e., UML diagram, of the SensorThings Tasking. The SensorThings tasking will not reinvent the wheel and is going to adhere to the well-thought and proven working OGC Sensor Planning Service Implementation Standard v2.0 standard (OGC 09-000). SensorThings Tasking will be a developer friendly RESTful API based on the SPS data model. It will offer a developer experience and API pattern that is similar to the OGC SensorThings Sensing, so that developers, who are familiar with the  SensorThings sensing, should be able to start using and coding with the SensorThings tasking effortlessly.

As part of the SensorThings Tasking, we are also expecting the JSON version of the OGC SWE Common Data Model Encoding (OGC 08-094r1). SWE Common Data Model is needed in order to describe the tasking parameters. Tasking parameters can be as simple as turning an actuator on or off. However, tasking parameters can also be a list of coordinates (e.g., tasking a drone to take picture covering a list of coordinates), polylines, or even polygons. SWE Common Data Model provides a good framework for SensorThings Tasking. However, its current form is an XML-based encoding. We will need a JSON encoding for SensorThings Tasking.

We expect to discuss the SWE Common Data Model JSON and the updated data model in the coming OGC TC meeting in Delft, the Netherlands. After data model is agreed by the group and SWE Common JSON available, we will be very near to complete the SensorThings Tasking. We are aiming to have the draft standard before end of Q3 2017.