ETSI TS 103 264 V3.1.1 (2020-02)

SmartM2M; Smart Applications; Reference Ontology and oneM2M Mapping

RTS/SmartM2M-103264v3

General Information

• Status: Published
• Publication Date: 12-Feb-2020
• Technical Committee: SmartM2M - Smart M2M
• Current Stage: 12 - Completion
• Due Date: 11-Feb-2020
• Completion Date: 13-Feb-2020

Standards Content (Sample)

ETSI TS 103 264 V3.1.1 (2020-02)






TECHNICAL SPECIFICATION
SmartM2M;
Smart Applications;
Reference Ontology and oneM2M Mapping

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2 ETSI TS 103 264 V3.1.1 (2020-02)



Reference
RTS/SmartM2M-103264v3
Keywords
data, IoT, M2M, oneM2M, ontology, SAREF,
semantic

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®
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3 ETSI TS 103 264 V3.1.1 (2020-02)
Contents
Intellectual Property Rights . 4
Foreword . 4
Modal verbs terminology . 4
1 Scope . 5
2 References . 5
2.1 Normative references . 5
2.2 Informative references . 5
3 Definition of terms, symbols and abbreviations . 6
3.1 Terms . 6
3.2 Symbols . 6
3.3 Abbreviations . 6
4 Smart Applications Reference Ontology and Semantics . 7
4.1 Introduction and Overview . 7
4.2 Principles . 8
4.3 SAREF . 10
4.3.1 General Overview . 10
4.3.2 Device . 11
4.3.3 Function . 13
4.3.4 Command . 14
4.3.5 State . 15
4.3.6 Service . 15
4.3.7 Profile . 16
4.3.8 Measurement, Property and Unit of Measure . 16
4.4 Observations about SAREF . 17
4.5 Extensions of SAREF . 18
5 Mapping between SAREF and oneM2M Base Ontology . 19
5.1 Introduction . 19
5.2 Mapping between SAREF and oneM2M Base Ontology . 19
5.3 Instantiation Rules for Creating the oneM2M Resource Structure . 21
Annex A (informative): Bibliography . 22
Annex B (informative): Change History . 23
History . 25

ETSI

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4 ETSI TS 103 264 V3.1.1 (2020-02)
Intellectual Property Rights
Essential patents
IPRs essential or potentially essential to normative deliverables may have been declared to ETSI. The information
pertaining to these essential IPRs, if any, is publicly available for ETSI members and non-members, and can be found
in ETSI SR 000 314: "Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs); Essential, or potentially Essential, IPRs notified to ETSI in
respect of ETSI standards", which is available from the ETSI Secretariat. Latest updates are available on the ETSI Web
server (https://ipr.etsi.org/).
Pursuant to the ETSI IPR Policy, no investigation, including IPR searches, has been carried out by ETSI. No guarantee
can be given as to the existence of other IPRs not referenced in ETSI SR 000 314 (or the updates on the ETSI Web
server) which are, or may be, or may become, essential to the present document.
Trademarks
The present document may include trademarks and/or tradenames which are asserted and/or registered by their owners.
ETSI claims no ownership of these except for any which are indicated as being the property of ETSI, and conveys no
right to use or reproduce any trademark and/or tradename. Mention of those trademarks in the present document does
not constitute an endorsement by ETSI of products, services or organizations associated with those trademarks.
Foreword
This Technical Specification (TS) has been produced by ETSI Technical Committee Smart Machine-to-Machine
communications (SmartM2M).
Modal verbs terminology
In the present document "shall", "shall not", "should", "should not", "may", "need not", "will", "will not", "can" and
"cannot" are to be interpreted as described in clause 3.2 of the ETSI Drafting Rules (Verbal forms for the expression of
provisions).
"must" and "must not" are NOT allowed in ETSI deliverables except when used in direct citation.

ETSI

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5 ETSI TS 103 264 V3.1.1 (2020-02)
1 Scope
The present document provides a standardized framework for the Smart Applications REFerence ontology based on the
results of a European Commission Study Group on Smart Appliances ontologies and of different Specialist Task Forces
that have supported the maintenance and evolution of the ontology taking into account all the interest of the relevant
stakeholders. This reference ontology contains recurring concepts that are used in several domains and is a basis for
extensions in particular domains.
The present document also defines the equivalent mapping between the Smart Applications REFference Ontology and
the oneM2M Base Ontology.
2 References
2.1 Normative references
References are either specific (identified by date of publication and/or edition number or version number) or
non-specific. For specific references, only the cited version applies. For non-specific references, the latest version of the
referenced document (including any amendments) applies.
Referenced documents which are not found to be publicly available in the expected location might be found at
https://docbox.etsi.org/Reference/.
NOTE: While any hyperlinks included in this clause were valid at the time of publication, ETSI cannot guarantee
their long term validity.
The following referenced documents are necessary for the application of the present document.
[1] European Commission and TNO: "Study on Semantic Assets for Smart Appliances
Interoperability", final report, April 2015.
NOTE: Available at https://sites.google.com/site/smartappliancesproject/deliverables.
[2] "SAREF: the Smart Applications REFerence ontology".
NOTE: Available at https://saref.etsi.org/saref.
[3] European Commission and TNO D-S4 - SMART 2013-0077: "Smart Appliances - Mapping
SAREF to short list assets.xlsx", February 2015.
NOTE: Available at https://sites.google.com/site/smartappliancesproject/documents.
[4] ETSI TS 118 112: "oneM2M; Base Ontology (oneM2M TS-0012)".
[5] ETSI TS 103 267 (V2.1.1): "SmartM2M; Smart Appliances; Communication Framework".
2.2 Informative references
References are either specific (identified by date of publication and/or edition number or version number) or
non-specific. For specific references, only the cited version applies. For non-specific references, the latest version of the
referenced document (including any amendments) applies.
NOTE: While any hyperlinks included in this clause were valid at the time of publication, ETSI cannot guarantee
their long term validity.
The following referenced documents are not necessary for the application of the present document but they assist the
user with regard to a particular subject area.
[i.1] ETSI TR 103 411: "SmartM2M Smart Appliances SAREF Extension Investigation".
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[i.2] ETSI TS 103 410-1: "SmartM2M; Smart Appliances Extension to SAREF; Part 1: Energy
Domain".
[i.3] ETSI TS 103 410-2: "SmartM2M; Smart Appliances Extension to SAREF; Part 2: Environment
Domain".
[i.4] ETSI TS 103 410-3: "SmartM2M; Smart Appliances Extension to SAREF; Part 3: Building
Domain".
[i.5] ETSI TS 103 410-4: "SmartM2M Extension to SAREF Part 4: Smart Cities Domain".
[i.6] ETSI TS 103 410-5: "SmartM2M; Extension to SAREF Part 5: Industry and Manufacturing
Domains".
[i.7] ETSI TS 103 410-6: "SmartM2M; Extension to SAREF; Part 6: Smart Agriculture and Food Chain
Domain".
3 Definition of terms, symbols and abbreviations
3.1 Terms
For the purposes of the present document, the following terms apply:
ontology: formal specification of a conceptualization, used to explicitly capture the semantics of a certain reality
smart application: any application in an IoT system making use of the SAREF ontology as specified in the present
document and making use of the SAREF communication framework as specified in ETSI TS 103 267 [5]
3.2 Symbols
Void.
3.3 Abbreviations
For the purposes of the present document, the following abbreviations apply:
DUL DOLCE+DnS Ultralite
HVAC Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning
OM Ontology of units of Measure
oneM2M oneM2M Partnership Project
OWL Web Ontology Language
SAREF Smart Applications REFerence ontology
SAREF4BLDG SAREF for the Building domain
SAREF4ENER SAREF for the Energy domain
SAREF4ENVI SAREF for the Environment domain
SAREF4CITY SAREF for the Smart Cities domain
SAREF4INMA SAREF for the Industry and Manufacturing domain
SAREF4AGRI SAREF for the Smart Agriculture and Food Chain domain
SEAS Smart Energy Aware Systems
SEP2 Smart Energy Profile 2.0
SSN Semantic Sensor Network
STF Specialist Task Force
SUMO Suggested Upper Merged Ontology
TNO Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research
®
UPnP Universal Plug and Play
®
W3C World Wide Web Consortium
WGS84 World Geodetic System 1984
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7 ETSI TS 103 264 V3.1.1 (2020-02)
4 Smart Applications Reference Ontology and
Semantics
4.1 Introduction and Overview
The Smart Applications REFerence ontology (SAREF) is intended to enable interoperability between solutions from
different providers and among various activity sectors in the Internet of Things (IoT), thus contributing to the
development of the global digital market.
SAREF shall use the SAREF Communication framework as defined in ETSI TS 103 267 [5].
The SAREF initiative started with a study on "Available Semantics Assets for the Interoperability of Smart Appliances:
Mapping into a Common Ontology as a M2M Application Layer Semantics", which was tendered by the European
Commission and was carried out by TNO.
Such study acknowledged that the energy utilization of Smart Appliances can be reduced if they are managed and
controlled on a system level. The system needs standardized interfaces to ensure interoperability. Many of the required
standards already exist, but a common architecture does not, resulting in a market which is too fragmented and
powerless. Therefore, a reference ontology of consensus was designed to cover the needs of all appliances relevant for
energy efficiency.
The study consisted of three tasks:
• Task 1: Take stock of existing semantic assets and use case assets.
• Task 2: Perform a translation exercise of each model (or use case) to a common ontology language and a
mapping or matching exercise between all the models.
• Task 3: Propose a reference ontology and document the ontology into the ETSI M2M architecture.
NOTE: The ETSI M2M architecture has evolved into the oneM2M architecture, therefore the latter one is the one
to be considered.
About 50 different semantic assets (i.e. standards, protocols, data models, ontologies) had been identified that describe
various properties of Smart Appliances in residential environments. After translating half of these semantic assets into
Web Ontology Language (OWL) (https://sites.google.com/site/smartappliancesproject/ontologies), 20 recurring
concepts were used as initial building blocks for creating the Smart Applications REFerence ontology (SAREF). For
SAREF in OWL, see [2]. The concepts were mapped from the semantic assets to SAREF to allow for translations
between different semantic assets.
SAREF explicitly specifies the recurring core concepts in the Smart Applications domain, the main relationships
between these concepts, and axioms to constrain the usage of these concepts and relationships. SAREF is based on the
fundamental principles of reuse and alignment of concepts and relationships that are defined in existing assets,
modularity to allow separation and recombination of different parts of the ontology depending on specific needs,
extensibility to allow further growth of the ontology, and maintainability to facilitate the process of identifying and
correcting defects, accommodate new requirements, and cope with changes in (parts of) SAREF.
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Mappings to other concepts used by different semantic assets allow translation from the reference ontology to specific
assets, reducing the effort of translating from one asset to another, since the reference ontology requires one set of
mappings to each asset, instead of a dedicated set of mappings for each pair of assets. Figure 1 shows the role of the
reference ontology in the mapping by means of sample assets. The mappings of SAREF to various assets are available
in [3].

® ®
NOTE: UPnP and Z-Wave are examples of suitable products available commercially. This information is given
for the convenience of users of the present document and does not constitute an endorsement by ETSI of
these products.

Figure 1: The role of SAREF in the mapping among different assets
SAREF is based on the following main concepts (in alphabetical order):
• Command (e.g. OnCommand, OffCommand, PauseCommand, GetCommand, NotifyCommand,
SetLevelCommand).
• Commodity (e.g. Electricity, Gas, Water).
• Device (e.g. Switch, Meter, Sensor).
• FeatureOfInterest.
• Function (i.e. Actuating Function, Event Function, Metering Function, Sensing Function).
• Measurement.
• Profile.
• Property (e.g. Energy, Humidity, Light, Motion, Occupancy, Power, Pressure, Price, Smoke, Temperature,
Time).
• Service (e.g. Switch On Service).
• State (e.g. On Off State, Open Close State, Start Stop State, Multi Level State).
• Task (e.g. Cleaning, Comfort, Lighting, Safety, Entertainment, Energy Efficiency).
• UnitOfMeasure (e.g. Currency, Energy Unit, Power Unit, Temperature Unit).
4.2 Principles
The Smart Applications REFerence ontology (SAREF) is conceived as a shared model of consensus that facilitates the
matching of existing semantic assets for building smart applications, reducing the effort of translating from one asset to
another, since SAREF requires one set of mappings to each asset, instead of a dedicated set of mappings for each pair of
assets.
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9 ETSI TS 103 264 V3.1.1 (2020-02)
Different semantic assets share some recurring, core concepts, but they often use different terminologies and adopt
different data models to represent these concepts. Using SAREF, different assets can keep using their own terminology
and data models, but still can relate to each other through their common semantics. In other words, SAREF enables
semantic interoperability in smart applications through its shared, core concepts.
SAREF explicitly specifies recurring core concepts in smart applications, the main relationships between these
concepts, and axioms to constrain the usage of these concepts and relationships. SAREF has been created based on the
following fundamental principles:
• Reuse and alignment of concepts and relationships that are defined in existing assets. Since a large amount of
work was already being done in the smart appliances and in the Internet of Things domains, nothing has been
re-invented, but harmonized and aligned what was already there. SAREF is based on the core concepts that
were identified as especially relevant to describe the existing semantic assets for smart applications and is
®
aligned to the main classes and properties of the oneM2M base ontology [4] and of the W3C Semantic Sensor
Network (SSN) ontology.
SAREF reuses the following resources:
® ® ®
- based on 20 domain-specific ontologies, e.g. W3C SSN ontology, Echonet, EnOcean , SEP2, UPnP
(https://sites.google.com/site/smartappliancesproject/ontologies);
®
- reuse of W3C Time ontology;
®
- reuse W3C WGS84 geo positioning vocabulary (through the SAREF4BLDG extension in ETSI
TS 103 410-3 [i.4]);
- reuse of Ontology of units of Measure (OM) individuals.
• Modularity to allow separation and recombination of different parts of the ontology depending on specific
needs. SAREF provides building blocks that can be combined to accommodate different needs and points of
view. The starting point is the concept of device, which is actually common to all the semantic assets
considered in the study, although some assets may refer to it with different names, such as resource or
product, but mappings for that are provided in [3]. For example, a "switch" is a device. A device is always
designed to perform one or more functions, therefore, SAREF offers a list of basic functions that can be
eventually combined in order to have more complex functions in a single device. For example, the switch
mentioned above offers an actuating function of type "on/off function". Each function has some associated
commands, which can also be selected as building blocks from a list. For example, the "on/off function" is
associated with the commands "on", "off" and "toggle". Depending on the function(s) it performs, a device can
be found in some corresponding states that are also listed as building blocks, so that it is easy and intuitive to
combine devices, functions and states. The switch considered in our example can be found in one of the two
states "on" or "off". SAREF also provides a list of properties that can be used to further specialize the
functioning of a device. For example, a "light switch" specializes the more general "switch" described above
for the purpose of controlling the "light" property. An extensive explanation of SAREF, describing its classes
and relationships, is presented in the next clause.
• Extensibility to allow further growth of the ontology. Different stakeholders can specialize the SAREF
concepts according to their needs and points of view, add more specific relationships and axioms to refine the
general (common) semantics expressed in the reference ontology, and create new concepts, as long as they
explicitly link these extensions to at least one existing concept and/or relationship in SAREF. The minimum
requirement is that any extension/specialization shall comply with SAREF. Examples of extensions of SAREF
in different domains are SAREF4ENER (energy domain) [i.2], SAREF4ENVI (environment domain) [i.3] and
SAREF4BLDG (building domain) [i.4].
• Maintainability to facilitate the process of identifying and correcting defects, accommodate new
requirements, and cope with changes in (parts of) SAREF. According to the extensibility criterion mentioned
above, a new module/ontology can be created to further extend/specialize concepts of SAREF. The party that
creates the extension should also be responsible for the maintenance of this extension and its evolution over
time. For the strategy proposed in ETSI to extend, maintain and evolve SAREF (and its extensions), see ETSI
TR 103 411 [i.1].
The prefixes and namespaces used in SAREF and in the present document are listed in Table 1.
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Table 1: Prefixes and namespaces used within the SAREF ontology
Prefix Namespace
saref https://saref.etsi.org/core/
dcterms http://purl.org/dc/terms/
foaf http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/
owl http://www.w3.org/2002/07/owl#
rdf http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#
rdfs http://www.w3.org/2000/01/rdf-schema#
vann http://purl.org/vocab/vann/
xsd http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#

4.3 SAREF
4.3.1 General Overview
Figure 2 shows an overview of the main classes of SAREF and their relationships. A detailed explanation of each class
is presented in clause 4.3.2 to clause 4.3.8.

Figure 2: Overview of the SAREF ontology
Table 2 provides a summary of definitions for the main classes of SAREF.
Table 2: Summary of main SAREF definitions
Concept Definition
Command A directive that a device shall support to perform a certain function. A command may act
upon a state, but does not necessarily act upon a state. For example, the ON command
acts upon the ON/OFF state, but the GET command does not act upon any state, it simply
gives a directive to retrieve a certain value. A list of commands that are relevant for the
purpose of SAREF is proposed, but this list can be extended.
Commodity A marketable item for which there is demand, but which is supplied without qualitative
differentiation across a market. SAREF refers to energy commodities such as electricity,
gas, coal and oil.
Device A tangible object designed to accomplish a particular task in households, common public
buildings or offices. In order to accomplish this task, the device performs one or more
functions. For example, a washing machine is designed to wash (task) and to accomplish
this task it performs a start and stop function.
Feature of interest A feature of interest represents any real world entity from which a property is measured. It is
linked to the different properties it has and to its measurements.
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11 ETSI TS 103 264 V3.1.1 (2020-02)
Concept Definition
Function The functionality necessary to accomplish the task for which a device is designed. A device
can be designed to perform more than one function. Functions can be structured in
categories (subclasses) that reflect different points of view, for example, considering the
specific application area for which a function can be used (e.g. light, temperature, motion,
heat, power, etc.), or the capability that a function can support (e.g. receive, reply, notify,
etc.) and so forth.
Measurement The measured value made over a property. It is also linked to the unit of measure in which
the value is expressed and to the timestamp of the measurement.
Profile A specification associated to a device to collect information about a certain property or
commodity (e.g. Energy or Water) for optimizing its usage in the home/building in which the
device is located. The profile is linked a certain property or commodity (saref:isAbout), can
be calculated over a time span (saref:hasTime) and can be associated to some costs
(saref:hasPrice). An example of a profile is the Power Profile defined in the SAREF4ENER
extension (this power profile can be associated to a device for optimizing the energy
efficiency in the home/building in which the device is located).
Property Anything that can be sensed, measured or controlled in households, common public
buildings or offices. A list of properties that are relevant for the purpose of SAREF is
proposed, but this list can be extended.
Service A representation of a function to a network that makes the function discoverable,
registerable, remotely controllable by other devices in the network. A service can represent
one or more functions. A service is offered by a device that wants (a certain set of) its
function(s) to be discoverable, registerable, remotely controllable by other devices in the
network. A service shall specify the device that is offering the service and the function(s) to
be represented.
State The state in which a device can be found, e.g. ON/OFF/STANDBY, or ONLINE/OFFLINE.
A list of states that are relevant for the purpose of SAREF is proposed, but this list can be
extended.
Task The goal for which a device is designed (from a user perspective). For example, a washing
machine is designed for the task of washing. A list of tasks that are relevant for the purpose
of SAREF is proposed, but this list can be extended.
Unit of Measure The unit of measure is a standard for measurement of a quantity, such as a saref:Property.
For example, Power is a property and Watt is a unit of power that represents a definite
predetermined power: when it is said 10 Watt, it is actually meant 10 times the definite
predetermined power called "watt". The definition of unit of measure in SAREF refers to the
definition of unit of measure in the Ontology of units of Measure (OM). A list of some units of
measure that are relevant for the purpose of SAREF is proposed, but this list can be
extended, also using some other ontologies rather than the Ontology of units of Measure
(OM).

4.3.2 Device
SAREF focuses on the concept of device, which is defined as "a tangible object designed to accomplish a particular
task in households, common public buildings or offices. In order to accomplish this tas
...