OGC Testbed-17: Call for Participation (CFP)

Table of Contents

1. Introduction
2. Technical Architecture
3. Deliverables Summary
4. Miscellaneous
Appendix A: Testbed Organization and Execution
Appendix B: Proposal Submission
Appendix C: Abbreviations
Appendix D: Corrigenda & Clarifications

1. Introduction

The Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) is releasing this Call for Participation (CFP) to solicit proposals for the OGC Testbed-17. The Testbed-17 initiative will explore eleven tasks, including Application Programming Interface (API) development, Features and Geometries JSON, Aviation, CITE, Geo Data Cubes, Sensor Integration, Moving Features from motion imagery, Security, Federated Cloud Analytics, COG & Zarr, as well as Model Driven Standards.

1.1. Background

OGC testbeds are an annual research and development initiative that explores geospatial technology from various angles. They take the OGC Baseline into account, and at the same time explore selected aspects with a fresh pair of eyes. Testbeds integrate requirements and ideas from a group of sponsors, which allows leveraging symbiotic effects and makes the overall initiative more attractive to both participants and sponsoring organizations.

1.2. OGC Innovation Program Initiative

This initiative is being conducted under the OGC Innovation Program. This program provides a collaborative agile process for solving geospatial challenges. Organizations (sponsors and technology implementers) come together to solve problems, produce prototypes, develop demonstrations, provide best practices, and advance the future of standards. Since 1999 more than 100 initiatives have taken place.

1.3. Benefits of Participation

This initiative provides an outstanding opportunity to engage with the latest research on geospatial system design, concept development, and rapid prototyping. The initiative provides a business opportunity for stakeholders to mutually define, refine, and evolve service interfaces and protocols in the context of hands-on experience and feedback. The outcomes are expected to shape the future of geospatial software development and data publication. The Sponsors are supporting this vision with cost-sharing funds to partially offset the costs associated with development, engineering, and demonstration of these outcomes. This offers selected Participants a unique opportunity to recoup a portion of their initiative expenses.

1.4. Master Schedule

The following table details the major Initiative milestones and events. Dates are subject to change.

Table 1. Master schedule
Milestone	Date	Event
M01	07 December 2020	Release of Call for Participation (CFP)
M02	06 January 2021 12 January 2021	Questions for CFP Bidders Q&A Webinar Due
M03	13 January 2021	CFP Bidders Q&A Webinar to be held 10:00-11:00 EST.
M04	24 January 2021	*CFP Proposal Submission Deadline (11:59pm EST)*
M05	31 March	All testbed Participation Agreements Signed. OGC will start sending preliminary offers to conduct negotiations no later than early March (and perhaps as soon as mid-February).
M06	*6-8 April*	*Kickoff Workshop* to be held in the Washington, DC area or organized as a virtual meeting. Details will be posted (when available) on the Testbed-17 Initiative Page.
M07	31 May	Initial Engineering Reports (IERs)
M08	June (specific date TBD)	IER presentations at Member Meeting
M09	30 September	TIE-Tested Component Implementations completed; Preliminary DERs complete & clean, ready for internal reviews
M10	31 October	Ad hoc TIE demonstrations (as requested during the month) & Demo Assets posted to Portal; Near-Final DERs posted to Pending & WG review requested
M11	November (specific date TBD)	Final DERs (incorporating WG feedback) posted to Pending to meet 3-Week-Rule for December publication vote
M12	December (specific date TBD)	Outreach presentations at Member Meeting
M13	15 December	Participant Final Summary Reports due

2. Technical Architecture

This section provides the technical architecture and identifies all requirements and corresponding work items. It references the OGC standards baseline, i.e. the complete set of member approved Abstract Specifications, Standards including Profiles and Extensions, and Community Standards where necessary. Further information on the OGC standards baseline can be found online.

Please note that some documents referenced below may not have been released to the public yet. These reports require a login to the OGC portal. If you don’t have a login, please contact OGC using the Additional Message textbox in the OGC Innovation Program Contact Form.

Testbed Threads

The Testbed is organized in a number of tasks. For organizational purposes, these tasks are further organized in threads. Each thread combines a number of tasks that usually share architectural or thematic aspects. Threads allow us to keep related work items closely together.

Figure 1. Testbed-17 Threads and Tasks

The threads include the following tasks

Thread 1: ADVANCED SENSOR INTEGRATION (ASI)
Thread 2: SECURITY, CLOUDS, AND MDA (SCM)
Thread 3: INTEROPERABILITY THROUGH APIS (ITA)

2.1. Sensor Integration

Sensor systems are built using many different standards, formats, and protocols. This is a significant barrier to sensor integration. Yet there are good reasons why this should be so. Sensors must be deployed where they will best measure a physical phenomenon that imposes non-negotiable constraints on their size, weight, power, and communications capabilities. These constraints limit the options available to the designer. They must select the best option that will work within their technical constraints.