Blockchain and game theory enable high-efficiency data sharing in the IIoT

Abstract

The rapid development of intelligent manufacturing is inseparable from collaboration among smart factories (SFs). In the real unmanned intelligent collaborative production process, each SF exists as an independent individual peer. However, due to the selfishness of SFs and intelligent manufacturing equipment (IME), they do not actively participate in data sharing, which brings serious obstacles to the collaborative development of SF. In order to solve the above problems, this paper combines blockchain technology and game theory technology to propose a high-efficiency data sharing incentive method based on the Stackelberg game. Specifically, We first take the SF as the leader and the IME as the follower, and we define the data sharing incentive problem among SFs as the master–slave game problem. Then, the lower game problem and the upper game problem are solved, respectively, and finally the Nash equilibrium is derived. Then, a high-efficiency data sharing incentive method based on the Stackelberg game is designed and implemented. Finally, we conducted simulation experiments on the method proposed in this paper. Through theoretical and simulation experiments, it has been proven that the proposed method effectively reduces the impact of the selfishness of SFs and IME and improves the efficiency of data sharing among SFs.