Importance of semantic interoperability in smart agriculture systems

The Internet of Things (IoT) connects people with real-world objects to exchange data. It is performed using services and devices present in the user's activities based on the IoT. Based on a common vocabulary or mappings, knowledge and information can be exchanged by different agents, services, and devices in this scenario. The heterogeneous sources can be represented and integrated by an ontology. The Semantic Web offers semantic interoperability that facilitates communication between heterogeneous devices and technology platforms. The state-of-the-art of IoT semantic interoperability is assessed and reviewed in this work. The importance and challenges of interoperability are discussed in detail with an in-depth analysis of the requirements. IoT based semantic interoperability model is discussed with semantic annotations of data required for heterogeneous IoT devices. Additionally, it has been presented which Semantic Web technologies are incorporated, and the challenges have been studied in this research area. Agriculture is a domain where IoT applications have a lot of potentials. The market is filled with several devices that collect data from the farms and send it to the cloud. Semantic Web technology for applications in agriculture has been discussed in detail with data integration. Semantic resources for agriculture have been enlisted with linked data hubs and semantic data standards. The article aims to address the need and requirement of IoT with semantic interoperability in the field of agriculture. The use of IoT interoperability in agriculture can bring long term benefits to the farmers and increase productivity while reducing the overall costs incurred.