The issue of the "moving sensor"

• The issue is: Assuming that we have a family of sensor of the same model that move while it does puntual observations...
• What is the sensor and the procedure exactly?
• In DescribeSensor, can we describe the position of the sensor? or is the position of the family?
• In GetObservation can we have the puntual position of each observation?.
• In GetObservation the procedure is the sensor family?
• How can we relate a GetObservation to a single sensor id? (imagine that a sensor of the family is faulty and we need to detect the observations done with it.

Answer of Simon Jirka to a question originated in the Venice.

> The issue is: Assuming that we have a family of sensor of the same model that move while it does puntual observations...
>
> What is the sensor and the procedure exactly?

This depends on the specific information that you would like to
deliver. It is enough to refer to the sensor type or to the specific
sensor instance (with serial number, individual history, etc.).
SensorML offers possibilities to cover both cases.

An option would be to create one single SensorML description for the
sensor type. In addition you would also create SensorML descriptions
for the individual sensor instances. However, with the SensorML typeOf
element you could refer from the instance descriptions to the sensor
type description. Thus, the sensor type description would contain all
common properties of the sensor type, while the instance descriptions
only contain the instance-specific metadata such as serial number,
history, etc.

> In DescribeSensor, can we describe the position of the sensor? or is the position of the family?

Yes, you can include the sensor positions in the SensorML files
describing the individual sensor instances. However, if the sensors
are moving, it might be an option to include in the sensor instance
descriptions some kind of bounding box. If you include the position
into the SensorML file, that would require a quite large number of
sensor description updates.

> In GetObservation can we have the puntual position of each observation?.

Yes, that would be achieved through the feature of interest (sampling feature).

> In GetObservation the procedure is the sensor family?

Both options are possible. The approach that you use would depend on
the information that you would like to publish via the SOS.

An advanced option would be to use an SOS data model which is capable
of supporting the typeOf relationship. In the capabilities you could
list the available sensor types while the individual observations
returned by the SOS server contain the references to the specific
sensor instance that has created the observation. For the instance
description you could then also find the corresponding sensor types
(via the typeOf element).

> How can we relate a GetObservation to a single sensor id? (imagine that a sensor of the family is faulty and we need to detect the observations done with it.

The filtering would be possible via the GetObservation request
together with the procedure query parameter. Ideally, you would use an
SOS server which can handle, both the sensor type as well as the
sensor instance identifiers for queries.