- The Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC®) seeks public comment on the candidate OGC SensorML 2.0 Encoding Standard.

SensorML is a machine-readable language for describing sensors, actuators, and processes surrounding measurement. SensorML is a key component of the OGC Sensor Web Enablement (SWE) suite of standards. 

SensorML 2.0 includes the following changes to the previous version 1.0.1, which was approved in 2007:

•  Separation of SWE Common Data as a separate standard
•  More tightly defined rules
•  Conformance classes allowing for incremental support of SensorML in software and derived encodings
•  A host of examples provided at initial release of the specification.

In addition, SensorML 2.0 includes the following new or improved features:

•  Support for property extension using external schema
•  Better-defined support for positions and dynamic state (e.g. location, orientation, velocity, and acceleration)
•  Better support for inheritance allowing for compact descriptions of deployed devices and processes
•  Direct access to real-time values and data streams
•  Better support for multiplexed data streaming (i.e. streams with disparate messages).

SensorML 2.0 supports the descriptions of things within the Internet of Things (IoT) and Web of Things (WoT) by providing a common standard for sensors ("things the measure"), actuators ("things that act"), and processors ("things that calculate"). Efforts are also underway to take advantage of the complementary role that SensorML 2.0 can play with the OGC City Geography Markup Language (CityGML) Encoding Standard and the candidate OGC standard IndoorGML.

The OGC SensorML 2.0 Encoding Standard Evaluation Package is free and can be downloaded from http://www.opengeospatial.org/standards/requests/93. The deadline for comments is 5 December 2012.

The OGC is an international consortium of more than 465 companies, government agencies, research organizations, and universities participating in a consensus process to develop publicly available geospatial standards. OGC Standards support interoperable solutions that "geo-enable" the Web, wireless and location-based services, and mainstream IT. OGC Standards empower technology developers to make geospatial information and services accessible and useful with any application that needs to be geospatially enabled. Visit the OGC website at http://www.opengeospatial.org/contact.