The document summarizes a presentation about the MMI Device Ontology project. The project aims to develop an ontology of marine devices to help integrate sensor data. It involves defining classes and properties to characterize devices, measurements, and deployments. The ontology is being developed through use cases and community input, with the goal of enabling discovery and integration of sensor and observation data.

1. The MMI Device Ontology:
Enabling Sensor Integration
Carlos Rueda1, Nancy Galbraith2, Robert A. Morris3,
Luis E. Bermudez4, Robert A. Arko5, John Graybeal6,
1 Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute, Moss Landing, CA, USA
2 Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Woods Hole, MA, USA
3 Department of Computer Science, University of Massachusetts at Boston, Boston, MA, USA
4 Open Geospatial Consortium, Herndon, VA, USA
5 Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Columbia University, Palisades, NY, USA
6 California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology, University of
California San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA
MMI Device Ontology Working Group
Marine Metadata Interoperability Project
American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting 2010
1
Dec 16, 2010 – Session: IN44B-08

2. • Mission
–To promote the exchange, integration and use of
marine data through enhanced data publishing,
discovery, documentation and accessibility
The MMI Device Ontology: Enabling Sensor Integration - AGU Fall Meeting 2010 Session: IN44B-08 2

3. • Main Projects
– Website: Resources
& References
– Metadata Guides
– Ontology Registry and Repository (ORR)
– Ontology Development
– OOSTethys Demo
The MMI Device Ontology: Enabling Sensor Integration - AGU Fall Meeting 2010 Session: IN44B-08 3

4. The MMI Device Ontology
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5. Motivation
• Lack of a proper device characterization
• Lack of common/extensible vocabulary
• Difficulty to find device related information
–Functionality
–Measured variables
–Instrument composability
–Deployments
• Uncoordinated sensor data management
approaches
The MMI Device Ontology: Enabling Sensor Integration - AGU Fall Meeting 2010 Session: IN44B-08 5

6. Main Goals
• Develop an extensible ontology of marine
devices
• Integrate with models for sensor descriptions
• Provide provenance metadata for
oceanographic observations
• Help users and software agents discover
sensors and sensor data of interest
The MMI Device Ontology: Enabling Sensor Integration - AGU Fall Meeting 2010 Session: IN44B-08 6

7. The Development Process
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8. Logistics
• Organic Group at the MMI Drupal site
– http://marinemetadata.org/devont
– Agendas/minutes/reports/guidance/comments/references
• Regular telecons
• Mailing list
• Task tracker
The MMI Device Ontology: Enabling Sensor Integration - AGU Fall Meeting 2010 Session: IN44B-08 8

9. Technologies and Tools
• W3C Web Ontology Language (OWL)
• Ontology Editors and Visualizers
• MMI Ontology Registry and Repository (ORR):
–publication
–versioning
–resolvability
–mappings
The MMI Device Ontology: Enabling Sensor Integration - AGU Fall Meeting 2010 Session: IN44B-08 9

10. Methodology
• Use case driven
• Facets-to-ontology process
• Validation / Enrichment
–Instantiations
–Reasoner tools
–Coordination with similar efforts
(eg., W3C Sensor Network Incubator Group)
The MMI Device Ontology: Enabling Sensor Integration - AGU Fall Meeting 2010 Session: IN44B-08 10

11. Use cases / Competency Questions
1. Get data information from sensor identification
2. Compare two data sets to get information about
observed variables over time
3. Find multibeam devices that can sense measurand
in earthRealm
4. Find devices with environmental tolerance
The MMI Device Ontology: Enabling Sensor Integration - AGU Fall Meeting 2010 Session: IN44B-08 11

12. Device Facets
The MMI Device Ontology: Enabling Sensor Integration - AGU Fall Meeting 2010 Session: IN44B-08 12

13. Facets-to-Ontology Process
• Pick entry from list of facets and identify:
–key entities (look at nouns)
–key relationships (look at verbs)
• For an identified entity:
–Definition; examples; atomic value or class?
–significant relationships
• For an identified relationship:
–kind (data type; object type; cardinality)
Propose change -> Task tracker -> Review -> Update -> Repeat
The MMI Device Ontology: Enabling Sensor Integration - AGU Fall Meeting 2010 Session: IN44B-08 13

14. The Ontology
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15. Core class hierarchy Component
• Component: Base class (physical unit) System
hasComponent
• System: A Component that can be a
composite of multiple (sub)components Process Platform
• Process: A System that has inputs
and outputs Device
• Platform: A System of Processes
and/or Platforms Sensor Sampler
• Device: a physical Process
• Sensor: a device that measures a physical phenomenon, converting it
into a digital representation that can be output to other components
• Sampler: Device that obtains a physical piece or subset of an observed
feature
The MMI Device Ontology: Enabling Sensor Integration - AGU Fall Meeting 2010 Session: IN44B-08 15

16. The MMI Device Ontology: Enabling Sensor Integration - AGU Fall Meeting 2010 Session: IN44B-08 16

17. Measurement Capability
The MMI Device Ontology: Enabling Sensor Integration - AGU Fall Meeting 2010 Session: IN44B-08 17

18. Environmental Tolerance
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19. Examples /
Applications
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20. Composition and Deployments
• CTD: Composition of
–Conductivity sensor
–Temperature sensor
–Depth sensor
• Deployment aspects
–Device canBeDeployedOn Platform [0..*]
–Device hasDeployment Deployment
–Deployment hasDeployedSystem System [0..*]
The MMI Device Ontology: Enabling Sensor Integration - AGU Fall Meeting 2010 Session: IN44B-08 20

21. A Particular CTD model
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22. Multibeam Ontology
• Describe multibeam mapping sonars for U.S.
academic research vessels
• Small number of complex systems (10 vessels)
• Joint development with NSF-funded Rolling Deck
to Repository (R2R) program
The MMI Device Ontology: Enabling Sensor Integration - AGU Fall Meeting 2010 Session: IN44B-08 22

23. Multibeam Ontology
• Details captured with properties
referencing community vocabularies
(using URIs) device:hasPlatformID
type: string
value: (SeaDataNet vocabulary –platforms)
device:hasMeasuredMedium
type: string
value: (SWEET ontology –earth realms)
device:hasFileFormat
type: string
value: (MB-System library –I/O formats)
(etc.)
The MMI Device Ontology: Enabling Sensor Integration - AGU Fall Meeting 2010 Session: IN44B-08 23

24. A Query Using SPARQL
–Find devices with temperature tolerance of at least -5°C
PREFIX dvo: <http://mmisw.org/ont/mmi/device/>
PREFIX rdf: <http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#>
PREFIX xsd: <http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#>
SELECT ?device ?min ?max ?consequence
WHERE { ?device dvo:hasEnvironmentalToleranceLimit ?toleranceLimit .
?toleranceLimit rdf:type dvo:TemperatureTolerance .
?toleranceLimit dvo:hasConsequence ?consequence .
?toleranceLimit dvo:hasTypedValue ?value .
?value dvo:hasValueType [ dvo:hasUnitsOfMeasure "°C"] .
?value dvo:hasMinimumRangeValue ?min .
?value dvo:hasMaximumRangeValue ?max .
FILTER ( xsd:float(?min) <= -5 )
}
The MMI Device Ontology: Enabling Sensor Integration - AGU Fall Meeting 2010 Session: IN44B-08 24

25. Query
–Find device deployments within 50 km from
somePoint (latitude/longitude)*
PREFIX dvo: <http://mmisw.org/ont/mmi/device>
PREFIX ogc: <...>
SELECT ?deployment ?location
WHERE { ?deployment rdf:type dvo:Deployment .
?deployment dvo:hasLocation ?location .
?location rdf:type ogc:Gml .
:somePoint ogc:hasGML ?gmlPoint .
FILTER(ogc:within_distance(
?gmlPoint, ?location, 50, "km"))
}
*OGC GeoSPARQL Standard Working Group
http://www.opengeospatial.org/projects/groups/
The MMI Device Ontology: Enabling Sensor Integration - AGU Fall Meeting 2010 Session: IN44B-08 25

26. Conclusion
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27. Lessons Learned
• Process is important
• “The best is the enemy of the good”
– comprehensiveness is difficult
• A single authoritative device type vocabulary?
More feasible/practical:
–Base conceptual model
–Community coordination
–Mappings
The MMI Device Ontology: Enabling Sensor Integration - AGU Fall Meeting 2010 Session: IN44B-08 27

28. Recommendations
for similar ontology efforts
• A process with appropriate level of formality
• Visual representation highly useful
• Have semantic experts and actual users
• Continuous testing is important
• Less is more:
do not pretend to be overly comprehensive
The MMI Device Ontology: Enabling Sensor Integration - AGU Fall Meeting 2010 Session: IN44B-08 28

29. Next Steps
• Better separation of concerns
–Intrinsic aspects
–Data management aspects
• Further harmonization and integration with
–MMI Platform Ontology
–SWEET
–SensorML and related profiles (eg., SID), OGC
• User-friendly editors for device descriptions
• End-to-end demonstrations
The MMI Device Ontology: Enabling Sensor Integration - AGU Fall Meeting 2010 Session: IN44B-08 29

30. The MMI Device Ontology:
Enabling Sensor Integration
More contributors are welcome; help us move the work forward!
Thank you!
http://marinemetadata.org/devont
Carlos Rueda – carueda@mbari.org
The MMI Device Ontology: Enabling Sensor Integration - AGU Fall Meeting 2010 Session: IN44B-08 30

31. Back-up slides
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32. Value Types
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33. Measurement Capabilities
• VaisalaWM30 instrument
– http://www.vaisala.com/instruments/products/wm30.html
• Wind speed measurement capability:
– Accuracy (range 0.4...60 m/s)
wind speed up to 10 m/s -- ±0.3 m/s
wind speed over 10 m/s -- error < 2%
• VaisalaWM30 subClassOf
– Sensor
– Restriction involving relevant measurement capabilities
The MMI Device Ontology: Enabling Sensor Integration - AGU Fall Meeting 2010 Session: IN44B-08 33

34. Measurement Capabilities
The MMI Device Ontology: Enabling Sensor Integration - AGU Fall Meeting 2010 Session: IN44B-08 34

35. Operational
Procedure
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