Incentive Mechanism for Crowdsensing with User Autonomous Decision-Making Based on Prospect Theory and Ordered Submodularity

Huiming Jiang, Xiaoheng Deng, Deng Li, Xinjun Pei, Jinsong Gui, Geyong Min

Abstract: Mobile Crowdsensing (MCS) is a new data acquisition method that has emerged with the proliferation of smart mobile devices. With the expanding scale of urban sensing, the locations of tasks and users become critical information, which plays a significant role in crowd-sensing and task scheduling areas. Tasks in areas with a high concentration of users can be completed quickly, whereas tasks in sparsely populated areas are challenging to accomplish. To address this issue, existing research has primarily focused on task assignment to designated users, assuming that users' motivations are rational, while neglecting the impact of psychological factors on their motivations. Therefore, we propose an incentive mechanism based on prospect theory, analyzing the decisions users might make under irrationality and then adjusting corresponding rewards to influence user decisions. This paper transforms the problem of maximizing the data value in crowdsensing into an ordered submodular function model. Our proposed incentive mechanism consists of three components: User Decision-Making, User Selection, and Payment Determination. In the User Decision-Making phase, users calculate the prospect value based on the auction results from the previous round to make decisions. In the User Selection phase, users are chosen based on marginal value. In the Payment Determination phase, rewards for winning users are designed based on the ordered submodular model. The platform provides auction results as a reference for the next round. In the experimental section, we demonstrate that the incentive mechanism can enhance the platform's value.

External IDs:doi:10.1109/tmc.2025.3641839