Sensor data gets Web services format
The Open Geospatial Consortium has approved a new Extensible Markup Language-based schema for describing data that comes from remote sensors.
The
Transducer Markup Language Implementation specification (TML or TransducerML) could be used to access material from a variety of network-accessible sensors ranging from simple digital switches to complex imaging systems. In this context, the transducer is the component that converts the raw input from the sensor into the data readable by other computation devices.
Because it is annotated by the schema and a related conceptual framework, the data that such systems generate could be ingested by a variety of network systems, even those not yet defined by the implementers of the sensor.
The specification has a set of models describing the response characteristics of a transducer, including models that accommodate noise and other limiting performance characteristics of sensors. It also offers a way to prepare the data for geospatial systems.
"TML response models are formalized XML descriptions of these known hardware behaviors," the specification states. "The models can be used to reverse distorting effects and return artifact values to the phenomena realm."
The National Geospatial Intelligence Agency, the Air Force Research Laboratory and Oak Ridge National Laboratory contributed to TML, as did private companies such as Lockheed Martin Corp. and Northrop Grumman Corp.
About the Author
Joab Jackson is the senior technology editor for Government Computer News.