Discovery Mechanisms for the Sensor Web

This paper addresses the discovery of sensors within the OGC Sensor Web Enablement framework. Whereas services like the OGC Web Map Service or Web Coverage Service are already well supported through catalogue services, the field of sensor networks and the according discovery mechanisms is still a challenge. The focus within this article will be on the use of existing OGC Sensor Web components for realizing a discovery solution. After discussing the requirements for a Sensor Web discovery mechanism, an approach will be presented that was developed within the EU funded project “OSIRIS”. This solution offers mechanisms to search for sensors, exploit basic semantic relationships, harvest sensor metadata and integrate sensor discovery into already existing catalogues.