A literature review of sensor ontologies for manufacturing applications

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to review existing sensor and sensor network ontologies to understand whether they can be reused as a basis for a manufacturing perception sensor ontology, or if the existing ontologies hold lessons for the development of a new ontology. We develop an initial set of requirements that should apply to a manufacturing perception sensor ontology. These initial requirements are used in reviewing selected existing sensor ontologies. Additionally, we present our developed sensor ontology thus far that incorporates a refined list of requirements. This paper describes 1) extending and refining the requirements; 2) proposing hierarchical structures for verifying the purposes of the ontology; 3) choosing appropriate tools and languages (e.g., OWL (Web Ontology Language) [1] and SensorML (Sensor Markup Language) [2]) to support such an ontology; and 4) extending the Semantic Sensor Network (SSN) ontology with a set of refined requirements (i.e., our developed ontology). This work will be proposed as a standard within the IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) Robotics and Automation Society (RAS) Ontologies for Robotics Automation (ORA) Working Group [3].