Tamper-Proof Incentive Scheme for Mobile Crowdsensing Systems

People are increasingly connected to the Internet through their smartphones and each of these mobile devices has a wide range of sensors. The users themselves can be asked short questions about what they see. This crowdsensing has the potential to improve our daily lives by providing actual data about the environment and the use of services. However, there are significant obstacles to user participation like resource consumption and privacy concerns. There is a need for incentives to motivate the users. In this paper, we propose a tamper-proof incentive scheme for a mobile crowdsensing system that supports open sensing, with both automated and manual participation. We implemented a prototype of the system with server components and a mobile application. The proposed incentive scheme implements a tit-for-tat approach: positive user participation is rewarded with points that are stored in a shared record. This incentive ledger uses a Blockchain so that it can be trusted by every participant. The evaluation results show that the proposed scheme is practical and can be used to motivate increased participation in crowdsensing.