November 28, 2016 - The Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC®) is calling for participation in its newly established Electromagnetic Spectrum Domain Working Group (EM Spectrum DWG). This group will review requirements for an international open standard data model and derived encoding(s) for data describing electromagnetic fields in real-world environments. After reviewing requirements, the group may charter an OGC Standards Working Group to develop the standard data model and encodings.

Wireless signals, remote sensing radiation, and unintended emissions from artificial and natural sources all interact with both the material environment and the electromagnetic environment. Participants in the OGC EM Spectrum DWG represent the interests of multiple communities that would benefit from being able to easily publish, discover, assess, access, aggregate, disaggregate, and analyze spatial and temporal data describing all the properties of EMFs. These communities include the remote sensing, electromagnetic compatibility, and wireless communications communities as well as others. Participants anticipate that the proposed standard will be important in the radio-intense Internet of Things.

These communities all have in common a set of EMF data definitions, structure and syntax that are almost universally accepted and that are based on well-known laws of physics. The communities also share a set of primary and derived SI units for communicating measurements of the various properties of EMF. In each community, rapidly evolving use cases present requirements to integrate data that includes the spatial properties and other properties of EMF sources and sensors along with data describing properties of environmental features and phenomena that impact, are impacted by, or interact with EMF.

GEO Secretariat Director, Barbara Ryan, has expressed her support: "On behalf of the Group on Earth Observations, I very much welcome the establishment of the proposed OGC Working Group focused on the Radio Frequency Spectrum with the intent of developing a common international standard data model. The OGC Electromagnetic Spectrum Domain Working Group will provide an important coordination and harmonization function for future studies of frequency interference. Protecting selected frequency bands for Earth observations is essential for public safety, and hence, of key importance to GEO.”

The OGC EM Spectrum DWG provides an open forum for the discussion and presentation of electromagnetic spectrum data workflows, interoperability requirements, use cases, and non-OGC EMF standards. It is anticipated that current OGC standards and best practices and inclusion of EMF use cases in future OGC pilots, testbeds and other work will help resolve EMF data interoperability issues. See the OGC EM Spectrum DWG wiki at http://external.opengeospatial.org/twiki_public/EMSpectrumDWG. The wiki includes instructions for joining the EM Spectrum DWG’s public listserv. The DWG’s Charter describes the planned work of the DWG in greater detail.

The initiators of the OGC EM Spectrum DWG encourage interested parties to learn more and become involved in this important standards activity. OGC members benefit in many ways from their participation in OGC’s standards activities. The first session of the newly formed working group will be held at the OGC Technical Committee meeting in Taichung from 10:15-12:00 CST Wednesday 7 December 2016. The public is invited to attend or call in. Click on the EM Spectrum DWG entry in the TC Agenda for details.

See the OGC’s Domain Working Group page and Standards Working Group page to learn about other standards activities that are ongoing in the OGC. There is currently strong emphasis on topics related to Internet of Things, indoor navigation, Big Data, Linked Data, Mobile Location Services and Smart Cities.

About the OGC

The OGC is an international consortium of more than 525 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 accessible and useful with any application that needs to be geospatially enabled. Visit the OGC website at www.opengeospatial.org.

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