Data-VCG: A Data Preservation Game for Base Station-less Sensor Networks with Performance Guarantee

We design a data preservation game called Data-VCG for base station-less sensor networks (
$BSNs$
). In the BSN, sensor nodes do not have connected paths to a base station thus, sensory data must be preserved inside the network before uploading opportunities arise. Data-VCG incorporates data values into the classic Vickrey-Clark-Groves (VCG) mechanism, a generic truthful mechanism for achieving a socially-optimal solution. It motivates all the sensor nodes (i.e., source, storage, and transition) to voluntarily participate in the data preservation process while achieving minimum data preservation cost. We give a detailed analysis of the performance guarantee of the Data-VCG and show that under certain conditions, its worst-case budget imbalance is at most
$n-3$
times the efficiency gain, where
$n$
is the number of sensor nodes in the network. We conduct extensive simulations to validate our results in both grids and randomly generated BSNs under different network dynamics.