School of Information Engineering, Suzhou University, Suzhou 234000, China.
Global Information and Telecommunication Institute, Waseda University, Tokyo 169-0051, Japan.
Sensors (Basel). 2018 Dec 14;18(12):4422. doi: 10.3390/s18124422.
The Internet of Things (IoT) is emerging as a new communication paradigm and has attracted a significant amount of attention from both academic and engineering communities. In this paper, we consider an IoT market where three roles exist: Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs), two service providers (SPs) and end users. The WSNs are responsible for sensing and providing data to the two SPs. Based on the sensed data from WSNs, the two SPs compete to provide services to the end users. We model the relationship between the two SPs and end users as a two-stage Stackelberg game, where the two SPs set the prices for their services firstly, and then the end users decide which SP to choose. Specifically, we consider two price-competition scenarios of the two SPs, which are engaged in two games, one is a noncooperative strategic game (NSG) where the two SPs set the prices for services simultaneously, the other is a Stackelberg game (SG) where SP1 who sets the price first is the leader and SP2 who sets the price after is the follower. Each user decides whether and which SP to purchase services from based on prices and service rates. An equilibrium is achieved in each of the two scenarios. Numerical results are conducted to verify our theoretical analysis.
物联网（IoT）正在成为一种新的通信范式，引起了学术界和工程界的极大关注。在本文中，我们考虑了一个物联网市场，其中存在三个角色：无线传感器网络（WSNs）、两个服务提供商（SP）和最终用户。WSNs 负责感测并向两个 SP 提供数据。基于 WSNs 感测到的数据，两个 SP 竞争向最终用户提供服务。我们将两个 SP 和最终用户之间的关系建模为一个两阶段 Stackelberg 博弈，其中两个 SP 首先为其服务定价，然后最终用户决定选择哪个 SP。具体来说，我们考虑了两个 SP 之间的两种价格竞争情景，它们参与了两个游戏，一个是非合作战略游戏（NSG），其中两个 SP 同时为服务定价，另一个是 Stackelberg 游戏（SG），其中先定价的 SP1 是领导者，后定价的 SP2 是追随者。每个用户根据价格和服务率决定是否以及从哪个 SP 购买服务。在两种情况下都达到了均衡。进行了数值结果以验证我们的理论分析。
