Interoperability Enhancement of IoT devices Using Open Web Standards in a Smart Farming Use Case

Abstract

Since its first appearance the Internet of Things has been subject to constant evolution, development and change. Now it has stepped out of its infancy with billions of devices embedded in the world wide web. However, IoT providers mostly define their own data formats and protocols and there is still a lack of a common standard that connects these devices in an interoperable manner. There are several organisations dedicated to developing common standards for IoT devices and research is focusing on defining an effective standard to be used by embedded devices. Unsurprisingly, IoT has also found its way into the spatial web and into environmental monitoring and sensing platforms connected over the web by wireless sensor networks are now a common way to monitor natural phenomena. This study compares three open Web Standards in the use case of SEnviro for Agriculture, a full stack IoT for monitoring vineyards. The interoperability potential of the OGC’s Sensor Observation Service and SensorThings API are evaluated by integrating Web Standard implementations for each standard and contrasting their qualitative and quantitative traits. In a further step the Mozilla Corporation’s Web Thing API was implemented and evaluated in an environmental monitoring and Smart Farming context. The results of the study show that the SensorThings API proves to be the most adequate Web Standard for SEnviro and IoT applications for environmental monitoring and Smart Farming in terms of interoperability. It outperforms the contesting Web Standards in terms of flexibility and scalability, which strongly impacts on developer and user experience.