A metadata encoding for memory-constrained devices
Farha N. Ali, Yvon Feaster, Sally K. Wahba, Jason O. Hallstrom · 2011
With the broad applicability of wireless sensor networks across fields, it is desirable to develop self-describing sensor nodes that can operate in a plug-n-play manner. In this paper, we present MoteML, a metadata encoding suitable for storage on memory-constrained devices, designed in support of this goal. MoteML is consistent with Sensor Web Enablement's [23] Sensor Model Language (SensorML). More specifically, while MoteML does not conform to the SensorML schema, it can be translated into SensorML and vice-versa. This paper explores the available solutions for storing self-describing information on memory-constrained sensor nodes and presents the design of MoteML. MoteML is a text-based encoding that captures a subset of SensorML in a template-based structure. This text data is then compressed using available text compression techniques. The resulting file is small enough to be stored on a memory-constrained embedded device.