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ssn:Property

#SSN#RDF Class#Property#Entity Detail

The ssn:Property class represents observable or measurable characteristics of real-world entities. In SDL, ssn:Property is used to define what is being observed by a system or sensor, such as temperature, pH, or conductivity.


Definition

URI: http://www.w3.org/ns/ssn/Property

A ssn:Property is an aspect of an entity that can be observed or measured by a sensor or computation.


Usage in SDL

In SDL, ssn:Property is used to:

  • Define the type of phenomenon being observed
  • Drive consistency across observation data
  • Enable semantic alignment with domain ontologies and units

A ssn:Property is typically linked from sosa:Observation using sosa:observedProperty, and from ssn:System using ssn:forProperty.


Properties

Property Description Optional
dcterms:identifier A unique ID for the property Yes
dcterms:title A human-readable label Yes
dcterms:description Free-text description of what the property measures Yes
rdfs:subClassOf Optional semantic classification from a domain ontology Yes
skos:exactMatch External URI that semantically matches the property Yes

Composition and Relationships

Properties are used in both observation and deployment models:

ex:temperature a ssn:Property ;
  dcterms:title "Air Temperature" ;
  skos:exactMatch <http://qudt.org/vocab/quantitykind/Temperature> .

ex:obs123 a sosa:Observation ;
  sosa:observedProperty ex:temperature ;
  sosa:hasResult ex:result42 .

Common Properties in SDL

Here are some common properties used in SDL:


  • sosa:Observation — uses sosa:observedProperty
  • ssn:System — configured to detect specific ssn:Property
  • qudt:QuantityKind — semantic alignment to units and scientific meaning

See Also

ssn:Property connects what is being sensed to a shared semantic understanding — a foundation for interoperable scientific data.