Mobile crowdsensing service (MCS) providers recruit users to complete data collection tasks by rewarding the users to obtain greater revenue. Therefore, maximizing revenue is a focus of the MCS provider. This article expresses this problem as a revenue maximization programming model with budget constraints and designs a reverse-auction mechanism based on the attention model to solve the task allocation and pricing problems. Specifically, we convert the programming model under multiple constraints into an augmented Lagrangian function, optimally solve it through a multilayer neural network on the basis of the attention interactive framework, and finally output the allocation and payment solution. Our design guarantees that the mechanism meets economic criteria such as truthfulness, individual rationality, and budget feasibility. Combining the revenue-optimal reverse-auction mechanism with deep learning provides a new approach to mechanism design. Compared with existing methods, our solution achieves very good results in terms of service provider revenue and generalization experiments.

Mobile crowdsensing service (MCS) providers recruit users to complete data collection tasks with an incentive mechanism. How to maximize the utility of service providers has long been a popular topic in MCS research. Applying the existing reverse auction mechanism to an MCS may result in excessively high payments, thereby reducing the utility of the MCS provider. The affine maximizer auction (AMA) mechanism increases the revenue of service providers and meets dominant-strategy incentive-compatible (DSIC) characteristics. However, the AMA mechanism is a forward auction mechanism and cannot be applied to MCSs. Inspired by the AMA mechanism, this paper innovatively proposes a reverse affine maximizer auction (RAMA) mechanism to solve the task allocation problem of MCSs, effectively improving the MCS provider utility. Specifically, we construct a RAMA theoretical model and prove that the mechanism satisfies DSIC characteristics. For the discrete MCS task allocation problem, we use the reverse virtual valuation combinatorial auction (RVVCA) mechanism, a subclass of RAMA, to design a random mechanism RVVCA$^{t}$and prove that the RVVCA$^{t}$has a logarithmic approximate ratio. For the differentiable MCS task allocation problem, we use the deep learning transformer framework to design RAMANet, which can fit an exponential number of allocation solutions and output the optimal allocation and payment. We experimentally compare the algorithms of the RAMA family we propose, which use affine maximization, with existing state-of-the-art algorithms, demonstrating that the proposed algorithms significantly improve MCS provider utility.

In contrast to traditional mechanism design, the posted pricing mechanism can quickly determine the winning user and ensure the revenue of the seller through a predetermined price. Additionally, the posted pricing mechanism inherently possesses economic properties such as truthfulness and individual rationality. These properties make it an ideal method for solving online task allocation problems for mobile crowdsensing services (MCSs). The challenge in posted pricing mechanism design is being able to find reasonable posted prices under complex MCS task constraints. This paper presents an innovative posted pricing mechanism to solve a general point of interest (POI)-based online MCS task allocation problem. We transform the problem into an integer programming model with the goal of maximizing the total utility of the system while satisfying various constraints. We prove that under any user arrival order, there must exist a posted price structure that can ensure that the total utility of the system is approximately optimal, with an approximation ratio of$1/(d+1)$in the worst case. With the support of theoretical analysis, the posted price calculation can be completed using only a simple gradient descent algorithm. Compared with existing methods, our solution achieves very good results in terms of total utility and the task completion ratio, indicating that it can effectively improve the efficiency and service quality of MCSs.