Strategic Access and Pricing in Internet of Things (IoT) Service With Energy Harvesting

Abstract

This paper studies an interaction between the Internet of Things (IoT) device and users, both of which act strategically to achieve their own objectives. In the IoT system under consideration, the users access the service provided by the IoT device, e.g., to obtain sensing information. The device relies on energy harvesting to serve the users who are priced when accessing the service. When the delay cost of users is considered, we propose a game-theoretic queuing model to analyze the pricing strategy of the device and strategic joining rules for users. A Stackelberg game is formulated, in which the device, i.e., the leader, determines the service price to maximize his revenue facing the strategic users, i.e., the followers who determine their equilibrium joining strategy to maximize their own utility. Interestingly, we find that the equilibrium joining probability can be non-monotone in the length of energy harvesting time. Moreover, from the perspective of a social planner, the optimal service price to induce the maximal social welfare is derived, and the Price of Anarchy metric is examined accordingly. The numerical examples disclose that the socially optimal price should be lower than the optimal price for the device.