Sensor ML - What Are The Essential Elements?

What Are The Essential Elements?

Component -

Physical atomic process that transforms information from one form to another. For example, a Detector typically transforms a physical property or phenomenon to a digital number. Example Components include detectors, actuators, and physical filters.

System -

Composite physically based model of a group or array of components, which can include detectors, actuators, or sub-systems. A System relates a Process Chain to the real world and therefore provides additional definitions regarding relative positions of its components and communication interfaces.

Process Model -

Atomic non-physical processing block usually used within a more complex Process Chain. It is associated to a Process Method which defines the process interface as well as how to execute the model. It also precisely defines its own inputs, outputs and parameters.

Process Chain -

Composite non-physical processing block consisting of interconnected sub-processes, which can in turn be Process Models or Process Chains. A process chain also includes possible data sources as well as connections that explicitly link input and output signals of sub-processes together. It also precisely defines its own inputs, outputs and parameters.

Process Method -

Definition of the behavior and interface of a Process Model. It can be stored in a library so that it can be reused by different Process Model instances (by using 'xlink' mechanism). It essentially describes the process interface and algorithm, and can point the user to existing implementations.

Detector -

Atomic component of a composite Measurement System defining sampling and response characteristic of a simple detection device. A detector has only one input and one output, both being scalar quantities. More complex Sensors such as a frame camera which are composed of multiple detectors can be described as a detector group or array using a System or Sensor. In SensorML a detector is a particular type of Process Model.

Sensor -

Specific type of System representing a complete Sensor. This could be for example a complete airborne scanner which includes several Detectors (one for each band).