Applying the Open Geo-Stack to Web-enabled Things

Applications of the Web of Things reach from smart shoes posting your running performance online, over the localization of goods in the production chain, to computing the insurance cost of cars based on the actually driven kilometers. Thereby, Web of Things applications follow the REST paradigm, i.e. access to things and their properties is offered via REST APIs. This allows an easy meshing of web-enabled things into existing Web applications.

We present the SenseBox, a small computing device equipped with (1) different sensors to perceive its environment and (2) with a Web server and an according REST API which makes it available as a first class citizen on the Web. In an example use case, the SenseBox is deployed next to a road and its in-built ultra sonic sensor is used to detect the number of bypassing cars and eventually determine the traffic density.

The portal to access those SenseBoxes and display them in their spatial context is based on the open geo-stack consisting of OpenLayers, GeoServer, and PostGIS. We demonstrate how the integration of such Web-enabled things with these software tools works.