A spatio-temporal database prototype for managing moving objects in GIS

The location technologies, such as GPS and telegraphy, are producing more and more data of moving objects. Spatio-temporal database is needed to manage these data, so as to solve the problems in spatio-temporal applications. However, there are few prototypes of spatio-temporal database systems yet. This is because attention is always paid on some specified aspects not the whole system. In this paper, we present the design and implementation of a spatio-temporal database prototype for managing moving objects. A Trajectory Model is proposed in this paper, where the moving objects´ movements in 2D plane over time are treated as trajectories in the 3D spatio-temporal space. Referring to R tree and the trajectory oriented indexing method TB tree, a new indexing method: S-TB tree is proposed in the prototype. Distance based queries and trajectory topology based queries are all supported by the prototype. The distance based queries includes point queries, range queries. This paper also presents different strategies to process these queries. Finally, two application cases are presented: traffic control and historical queries of the storms on Earth.