DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION OF SENSOR 
METADATA ON INTERNET 
Ali A. Alesheikh 
Assistant Professor, Dept. of Geodesy and Geomatics Eng. 
K.N. Toosi University of Technology, Vali_asr St, Tehran, Iran, P.C. 1996715433 
Email: ali_alesheikh@hotmail.com Tel: +98 21 877 0006 Fax: +98 21 877 9476 
Mehrnoosh Ghorbani 
M.Sc. Student, Dept. of Geodesy and Geomatics Eng. 
K.N. Toosi University of Technology, Vali asr St, Tehran, Iran, P.C. 1996715433 
Email: mehrnoosh_ghorbani@yahoo.com Tel: +98 21 8786218 Fax: +98 21 877 9476 
Hossein Mohammadi 
M.Sc. Student, Dept. of Geodesy and Geomatics Eng. 
K.N. Toosi University of Technology, Vali asr St, Tehran, Iran, P.C. 1996715433 
Email: hoseinmohamady (yahoo.com Tel: +98 21 8786218 Fax: +98 21 877 9476 
KEYWORDS: METADATA, INTERNET, DISTRIBUTED, INTEROPERABILITY, WEB-BASED 
ABSTRACT 
Recently, there is a large tendency toward using modern technologies specially those systems whose are intelligent and in 
hand, every where and every time. Sensor technology is one of the important technologies that were introduced in the recent years. In 
future, we may have a world wide network of sensing devices that collects all kinds of input from various environments, assesses that 
input, and then shares it with us humans over a worldwide computer grid. A network of sensors can perform as an extensive 
monitoring and sensing system that provides timely, comprehensive, continuous and multi-mode observations. This new earth 
observation system opens up a new avenue to fast assimilation of data from various sensors and to accurate analysis and informed 
decision makings. 
One of the critical components in developing a sensor web is to build a geospatial information infrastructure, a backbone that 
connects the heterogeneous in-situ sensors over the wired or wireless networks. Although, with the rising trend to using of sensors, it 
is too important to have powerful and fast access to their collected data and themselves either, at any time and place. 
For comply these needs, having standard metadata for sensors and their collected data is essential. In this way, by using 
metadata technology, sensors can be searched via their standard metadata. Moreover, for full access to wanted sensors and data, a 
web-based system would be the best alternative, in which accessing and sharing of data through the whole world, by using World 
Wide Web will be possible. 
1. INTRODUCTION 
From the technical view point, in the simplest form 
sensors are electric transducers that translate a physical 
property into an electrical signal. In the other hand, it can be 
known as a device for measurement of physical quantities. 
There are many kinds of sensors all over the world, from 
temperature sensor (visual thermometer) to position sensor 
(GPS). They can be used in air, land, sea and space. 
In recent ‚years, sensors could be integrated with 
Internet and related technologies. In this way its observed data 
can be captured in real-time, remotely control on them can be 
established, and at a glance the efficiency of the systems in the 
different parts of industry, agriculture, environment 
management and etc. will be improved. 
Nowadays, Web comes to any activities, to business, 
education, communication and many other fields. Web can 
answer many of the needs; for example a person can easily 
book a seat on planes and room in hotel, in other country before 
he/she travel to that place. The possible use of Web seems 
endless, but there the technology is missing a crucial piece, that 
contains metadata which allows Web pages to be properly 
searched and processed in particular by computer. [1] 
Metadata plays an important role in finding available 
services on the Web. Metadata is data about data and is 
necessary component for precise access to wanted services. In 
fact, data without metadata is like a bottle of medicine without 
instruction, warning or an expiration date. 
On the other hand, to make applications interoperable 
and sharing data on the Internet, the need for common formats 
and protocols make it possible heterogeneous systems and 
application to negotiate easily [1]. Today's, access to and 
integration of the basic data is very limited. For example, one 
Web site provides data maps, another gives data in static tables, 
another demonstrate data as text reports and etc. To obtain à 
complete illustration of desired data together, a user must 
access each of these data provider sites separately, take the data 
in a unique format, and then in some way reconcile the 
differences in the data and integrate them. 
In general, this paper is going to study the 
formats/protocols that can be used for sensor collection 
services, metadata definition and sensor data encoding. The 
focus will be on Geography Markup Language (GML) as 
sensor measurements and observation application schema, 
Sensor Model Language (SensorML) as sensor description 
language and suitable for constructing observable dictionary 
and Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) as a format for graphical 
rendering of the results. 
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