SEA-URCHIN (HEDGE-IoT)
SEmantic mapper As a service for Universal and Reliable sCHema Interoperability in the eNergy domain (SEA URCHIN)
SEA-URCHIN is a project funded under the HEDGE-IoT Open Call, aiming to develop a fast, lightweight, and user-friendly semantic mapping service to bridge the gap between heterogeneous energy data sources and standardized IoT ecosystems.
Use case and motivation
The energy sector is still plagued with many important data sources effectively locked behind vendor-specific protocols, legacy formats, and inconsistent IEC standards. While frameworks like HEDGE-IoT improve interoperability (through SAREF ontologies), manually translating raw data to comply with these standardized models remains a major bottleneck – slowing the rollout of services for demand optimization, grid flexibility, and real-time predictive management.
To close this gap, we propose SEA-URCHIN: a fast, lightweight semantic mapping service that bridges diverse data sources to HEDGE-IoT’s standardization layer. It uses source-agnostic, easily adjustable mappings defined in clear YAML files, can connect to any RDF-native solution, and includes AI assistance to reduce implementation effort and cost. Built on a streamlined version of our streaming-first neurosymbolic platform, SEA-URCHIN integrates heterogeneous inputs into dynamic RDF knowledge graphs and can scale beyond HEDGE-IoT through reusable SAREF mappings, supporting domains like smart buildings, smart cities, and manufacturing.
Objectives and results
SEA-URCHIN will focus on three core objectives:
Firstly, the project will provide a set of declarative mappings to the SAREF ontologies relevant to the energy domain. To streamline data integration, the service will feature a dedicated engine to lift and lower user data (such as JSON and other formats) to and from RDF. User experience for mapping developers will be made as approachable as possible, employing LLM assistance for mapping preparation. The service will also provide integration with the HEDGE-IoT framework via REST APIs and MQTT compatibility.
Secondly, SEA-URCHIN will develop a data cleansing plan and a dedicated test suite to use in the project validation phase. The validation phase of the project will verify logical consistency and appropriate SAREF usage with a dedicated test suite. SEA-URCHIN will ensure the efficiency of containerized service deployment on both cloud and edge. Benchmarking and validation will be done using NeverBlink’s Raspberry Pi 5 cluster, focusing on service speed, monitoring capacity, and scalability.
Finally, the communication activities will be performed during the whole duration of the project, by maintaining a project page on NeverBlink’s website and via social media posts. At the end of the project, technical tutorials and a whitepaper will promote the solution’s exploitation outside HEDGE-IoT.
The second area of impact maximization will follow the Open Science principles by making the resulting mappings and any other relevant artifacts (e.g., SHACL shapes) available in a public GitHub repository using permissive open licenses. A white paper will be submitted to a relevant conference. As part of exploitation activities, SEA-URCHIN will be made available in the HEDGE-IoT App Store in a containerized form. We will perform a business case analysis, selecting potential market segments within the energy sector, defining the revenue model for the service, and addressing all other aspects of a Business Model Canvas.
Funding
This Service has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 101136216 via the cascade funding mechanism.
Total cost of project:
85 625,00 €
Contribution from the European Funds:
59 937,50 €
SEA URCHIN's deliverables and public materials reflect only NeverBlink's views, and the European Commission or the HEDGE-IoT project are not liable for any use that may be made of the information contained therein.