Steve Liang with SensorUp and the University of Calgary gave a focused presentation of the relevance of the OGC SensorThings API Standards in edge computing. His presentation highlighted the efficiency data transport in the standard protocols and the requirement to both pull and push data between devices and the cloud. Dr. Liang also presented use cases from an operational exercise performed for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security using SensorThings in a first responder scenario.

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Sponsors
Copyright © 2019 Open Geospatial Consortium
Edge Computing and SensorThings API
111th OGC Technical Committee
Leuven, Belgium
Steve Liang, CTO of SensorUp
25 June 2019

2. OGC
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Copyright © 2019 Open Geospatial Consortium
About Steve
• Steve Liang, Ph.D., P.Eng.
– Founder and CTO of SensorUp
– Associate Professor at Geomatics Engineering,
University of Calgary
– Chair of OGC SensorThings API SWG
– Chair of ITU-T FG-DPM WG2
• Research Areas
– Internet of Things with a focus on Interoperability
– Peer-to-Peer Computing
– Performance and scalability for DataStream
Management Systems (DSMS)

3. OGC
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Copyright © 2019 Open Geospatial Consortium
Outline
• What is Edge Computing?
• SensorThings API Introduction
• SensorThings API at the Edge
• Future Work

4. OGC
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Copyright © 2019 Open Geospatial Consortium
What is an “Edge”?
• Edge is defined as “any computing and network resources along the path
between data sources and cloud data centers” [2].

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Copyright © 2019 Open Geospatial Consortium
Why Edge Computing
• Push from Cloud Computing
– 5 Gigabyte data will be generated by a Boeing 787 every second
– One Gigabyte data will be generated by the car every second
• Pull from Internet of Things
– Data Quantity at the edge is too large, which will lead to huge unnecessary
bandwidth and computing resource
– Privacy protection requirement
– IoT are Energy Constrained things
• E.g., LoRAWAN (0.3~27 kbps)

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Copyright © 2019 Open Geospatial Consortium
OGC SensorThings API (OGC STA)
• Part I - Sensing (15-078r6)
• Part II - Tasking Core (17-079r1)
• Tasking Core Discussion Paper (18-056)

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SensorThings API Overview
• Data Model based on O&M
• JSON Encoding
• REST protocol based on
OASIS OData (not OpenAPI)
• MQTT Extension

8. 2019 SensorUp Inc.
SensorThings Implementations
Open Source
Foundations
Research
Institutes
Commercial Solutions

9. 2019 SensorUp Inc.
SensorThings’ Design considered Use Cases at the Edge
• Efficient Transport Protocol - CoAP and MQTT
• Pub/Sub - avoid unnecessary requests/polling
• Developers 💖 MQTT
• Stateless STA Extension
• easy for hardware vendors
• STA GeoJSON Extension
• easy for client developers

10. Dept. of Homeland Security Next Generation First Responder
Operational Exercise – 2018-12-04~12-05

11. Proprietary and confidential, 2018 SensorUp Inc.
DHS Next Generation First Responder
Operational Exercise 2019 – Birmingham, Alabama

12. 2019 SensorUp Inc.
SensorThings at the Edge
First Responder SensorThings Hub
MQTT
gateway
Sensor
IoT
MQTT
protocol
First Responder
SensorThings
Hub for Android
Sensor
Drivers
Sensor
Sensor w/
MQTT
SensorThings API
Cloud
Stateless
SensorThings
Extension
Data Consumer
at the Edge
(e.g., mixed
reality headset)
Full
SensorThings
API over MQTT
and HTTP
Different
Situational
Awareness
Dashboards
SensorThings
GeoJSON
Extension
Edge Cloud

13. When there is no Internet
Local Data Center on Mobile Command Center

14. 2019 SensorUp Inc.
SensorThings at the Edge - 2
First Responder SensorThings Hub
SensorThings
MQTT
Gateway
Sensor
SensorThings
MQTT
First Responder
SensorThings
Hub for Android
Sensor
Drivers
Sensor
Sensor w/
MQTT
SensorThings API
on a Local Area
Network
Stateless
SensorThings
Extension
Data Consumer
at the Edge
(e.g., mixed
reality headset)
Full
SensorThings
API over MQTT
and HTTP
Different
Situational
Awareness
Dashboards
SensorThings
GeoJSON
Extension
Edge Edge
SensorThings API
on a Wide Area
Network
Cloud

15. Proprietary and confidential, 2018 SensorUp Inc.
Future Works
A STA standard mechanism to synchronize STA edge devices and STA services.
e.g., concept similar to AWS IoT Shadow
A STA mechanism to define how edge nodes working collectively to perform computation (e.g.,
decentralized computing and/or peer-to-peer computing protocols)

16. Innovate with the information generated around us