ISO/IEC 21823-3:2021

ISO/IEC 21823-3
Edition 1.0 2021-09
INTERNATIONAL
STANDARD
colour
inside
Internet of Things (IoT) – Interoperability for IoT systems –
Part 3: Semantic interoperability

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ISO/IEC 21823-3
Edition 1.0 2021-09
INTERNATIONAL
STANDARD
colour
inside
Internet of Things (IoT) – Interoperability for IoT systems –

Part 3: Semantic interoperability

INTERNATIONAL
ELECTROTECHNICAL
COMMISSION
ICS 35.020; 35.110 ISBN 978-2-8322-1019-4

– 2 – ISO/IEC 21823-3:2021 © ISO/IEC 2021
CONTENTS
FOREWORD . 4
INTRODUCTION . 5
1 Scope . 8
2 Normative references . 8
3 Terms and definitions . 8
4 Abbreviated terms . 9
5 IoT semantic interoperability process . 9
5.1 Overview. 9
5.2 IoT semantic interoperability process requirements . 10
5.3 IoT semantic interoperability models . 11
5.4 IoT semantic interoperability guidelines . 13
5.4.1 Guidelines on the capture of semantic meaning . 13
5.4.2 Guidelines on the integration of semantic interoperability capability . 14
5.4.3 Guidelines on the support of semantic interoperability engineering . 15
6 IoT semantic interoperability life cycle . 19
6.1 Life cycle requirements . 19
6.2 Life cycle model . 22
6.3 Life cycle implementation guidelines . 23
6.3.1 Guidelines on ontology life cycle . 23
6.3.2 Guidelines on semantic interoperability life cycle . 23
6.3.3 Guidelines on IoT system life cycle . 24
Annex A (informative) Guidance on how to learn IoT semantic interoperability . 26
Annex B (informative) Guidance on how to develop IoT semantic interoperability. 29
B.1 Developing semantic interoperability capabilities . 29
B.2 Building steps . 29
Annex C (informative) Guidance on how to manage IoT semantic interoperability life
cycle . 31
C.1 Interoperability specification life cycle that supports ontologies . 31
C.2 IoT system life cycle supporting interoperability . 32
Annex D (informative) Ontological specification of the IoT Reference Architecture . 33
D.1 General . 33
D.2 Service, network, IoT device and IoT gateway . 33
D.3 IoT-User . 34
D.4 Virtual entity, physical entity and IoT device. 35
D.5 Domain-based Reference Model (RM). 35
Annex E (informative) Related existing ontologies . 37
E.1 W3C Semantic Sensor Network ontology . 37
E.2 IoT-Lite . 37
E.3 Open Connectivity Foundation (OCF) ontology . 37
E.4 ETSI Smart Applications REFerence ontology . 41
E.5 oneM2M Base Ontology . 42
E.6 Sensor Model Language (SensorML) . 42
E.7 IoT-O . 43
E.8 IoT ontology unification approach . 43
Bibliography . 45

Figure 1 – Semantic interoperability facet for IoT . 5
Figure 2 – Using metadata in semantic interoperability . 6
Figure 3 – Meaningfulness of the data, described with metadata . 6
Figure 4 – Objective of semantic interoperability standard . 9
Figure 5 – IoT semantic interoperability process model . 11
Figure 6 – Semantic information usage model . 12
Figure 7 – Example of structured knowledge representation . 13
Figure 8 – Example of semantic information usage for a temperature sensor . 15
Figure 9 – Example of ontology mapping . 17
Figure 10 – Example of ontology alignment . 18
Figure 11 – Example of ontology merging . 18
Figure 12 – Example of ontology integration . 19
Figure 13 – Example of modular design . 22
Figure 14 – Example of interoperability maturity evaluation result . 22
Figure 15 – Semantic interoperability life cycle model . 23
Figure 16 – Example of ontology life cycle model . 23
Figure 17 – Example of interoperability specification life cycle . 24
Figure D.1 – IoT entity . 33
Figure D.2 – Service, network, IoT device and IoT gateway . 34
Figure D.3 – IoT-User . 34
Figure D.4 – Virtual entity, physical entity, and IoT device . 35
Figure D.5 – Domain-based Reference Model . 36
Figure E.1 – Architecture – concepts . 38
Figure E.2 – Communication layering model . 38
Figure E.3 – oneIoTa . 39
Figure E.4 – OCF ontology . 40
Figure E.5 – SAREF and its extensions . 41
Figure E.6 – Overview of the SAREF ontology . 42

Table 1 – IoT semantic interoperability process requirements . 10
Table 2 – Llife cycle requirements . 20
Table A.1 – Syllabus example on IoT semantic interoperability practice . 26
Table A.2 – Course content for semantic interoperability practice . 27
Table B.1 – Building steps for IoT semantic interoperability . 30
Table C.1 – Example of interoperability specification life cycle . 31
Table C.2 – Example of IoT system life cycle . 32

– 4 – ISO/IEC 21823-3:2021 © ISO/IEC 2021
INTERNET OF THINGS (IoT) –
INTEROPERABILITY FOR IoT SYSTEMS –

Part 3: Semantic interoperability

FOREWORD
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