A Platform-Based Incentive Mechanism for Autonomous Vehicle Crowdsensing

In this article, we present an incentive mechanism for Vehicular Crowdsensing in the context of autonomous vehicles (AVs). In particular, we propose a solution to the problem of sensing coverage of regions located out of the AVs’ planned trajectories. We tackle this problem by dynamically modifying the AVs’ trajectories and collecting sensing samples from regions otherwise unreachable by originally planned routes. We model this problem as a non-cooperative game in which a set of AVs equipped with sensors are the players and their trajectories are the strategies. Thus, our solution corresponds to a model in which expected individual utility drives the mobility decision of participants. Using open-street maps, SUMO vehicular traffic simulator, and extensive simulations, we show our algorithm significantly outperforms traditional approaches for trajectory generation. In particular, our performance evaluation shows a significant lift in crowdsourcer coverage, road utilization, and average participant utility.