Making Sensor Data Available Using Web Feeds

The setup of and processing within sensor networks often requires sophisticated and specialized system designs and implementations, but the service provided by them should be as accessible and repurposable as possible. If the increasing number of available sensor-based data sources can be accessed in a simple and universal way, the network effect of aggregating, filtering, and republishing data from these sources will significantly increase their value. We propose an architecture where sensor-based data sources publish their data based on feeds, but extended with query capabilities. Using the well-known and widely supported Atom feed format and extending it with query capabilities allows us to lower the barrier-of-entry to sensor-based data sources, opening this data to a wider audience of clients.