The massive deployment of Internet of Things (IoT) devices, including sensors and actuators, is ushering in smart and connected communities of the future. The massive deployment of IoT devices, including sensors and actuators, is ushering in smart and connected communities of the future. The availability of real-time and high-quality sensor data is crucial for various IoT applications, particularly in healthcare, energy, transportation, etc. However, data collection may have to be outsourced to external service providers (SPs) due to cost considerations or lack of specialized equipment. Hence, the data market plays a critical role in such scenarios where SPs have different quality levels of available data, and IoT users have different application-specific data needs. The pairing between data available to the SP and users in the data market requires an effective mechanism design that considers the SPs’ profitability and the Quality-of-Service (QoS) needs of the users. We develop a generic framework to analyze and enable such interactions efficiently, leveraging tools from contract theory and mechanism design theory. It can enable and empower emerging data-sharing paradigms, such as Sensing-as-a-Service (SaaS). The contract design creates a pricing structure for on-demand sensing data for IoT users. By considering a continuum of user types, we capture a diverse range of application requirements and propose optimal pricing and allocation rules that ensure QoS provisioning and maximum profitability for the SP. Furthermore, we provide analytical solutions for fixed distributions of user types to analyze the developed approach. For comparison, we consider the benchmark case assuming complete information of the user types and obtain optimal contract solutions. Finally, a case study based on the example of a virtual reality application delivered using unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) is presented to demonstrate the efficacy of the proposed contract design framework.

中文翻译：

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基于 QoS 的合同设计，实现物联网数据市场利润最大化


包括传感器和执行器在内的物联网 (IoT) 设备的大规模部署正在迎来未来的智能互联社区。包括传感器和执行器在内的物联网设备的大规模部署正在迎来未来的智能互联社区。实时和高质量传感器数据的可用性对于各种物联网应用至关重要，特别是在医疗保健、能源、交通等领域。然而，出于成本考虑或其他原因，数据收集可能必须外包给外部服务提供商（SP）缺乏专业设备。因此，数据市场在服务提供商具有不同质量水平的可用数据以及物联网用户具有不同的特定应用数据需求的场景中发挥着至关重要的作用。数据市场中SP和用户可用的数据之间的配对需要有效的机制设计，该机制设计要考虑SP的盈利能力和用户的服务质量(QoS)需求。我们开发了一个通用框架，利用契约理论和机制设计理论的工具，有效地分析和实现此类交互。它可以支持新兴的数据共享范例，例如传感即服务 (SaaS)。合同设计为物联网用户按需传感数据创建了定价结构。通过考虑连续的用户类型，我们捕获了各种应用程序需求，并提出最佳定价和分配规则，以确保服务提供商的 QoS 供应和最大盈利能力。此外，我们还提供针对用户类型固定分布的分析解决方案来分析所开发的方法。为了进行比较，我们考虑假设用户类型完整信息的基准案例并获得最佳合约解决方案。 最后，提出了一个基于使用无人机（UAV）交付的虚拟现实应用程序示例的案例研究，以证明所提出的合同设计框架的有效性。