The Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC(R)) announced the formation of a new OGC(R) Technical Committee Standards Working Group (SWG) to advance the candidate OGC Internet of Things REST API (Sensor Web for IoT) Standard. The OGC members invite the public to comment on the Sensor Web for IoT SWG charter (https://portal.opengeospatial.org/files/49608) and will consider comments received before 10 August 2012.

The OGC's existing Sensor Web Enablement (SWE) standards, as well as standards from other groups and proposals submitted by members, will inform the new Sensor Web for IoT work. OGC SWE standards currently support such complex tasks as controlling Earth imaging satellites, but they can also be pared down to lightweight profiles suitable for applications that require much less functionality. Members of the Sensor Web for IoT SWG will explore opportunities to extend the SWE framework and to harmonize it with existing open standards to accommodate Web-friendly and efficient implementations of sensor interfaces and sensor networks using the Representational State Transfer (REST) programming model. Sensor Web for IoT SWG members anticipate that REST and sensors will be important factors in the emerging Internet of Things (IoT).

The new Sensor Web for IoT SWG will meet regularly via conference calls and at future Technical Committee meetings to promote maximum participation in its activities. "In order to reach its potential impacts on the planet, the Internet of Things must have open, royalty-free standard interfaces and encodings with complete documentation and reference implementations for developers," said Sensor Web for IoT convener, Steve Liang, who is director of the GeoSensorWeb Laboratory at the University of Calgary. "The standards coming out of this OGC process will make it possible for developers to ensure that sensors, the observations they produce and the systems they inform will be easy to reach and control with Web services, without compromising security and data integrity."

The OGC is an international consortium of more than 445 companies, government agencies, research organizations, and universities participating in a consensus process to develop publicly available geospatial standards. OGC Standards support interoperable solutions that "geo-enable" the Web, wireless and location-based services, and mainstream IT. OGC Standards empower technology developers to make geospatial information and services useful with any application that needs to be geospatially enabled. Visit the OGC website at http://www.opengeospatial.org/contact.