Incentive techniques for the Internet of Things: A survey

of the incentive techniques for IoT, aiming to provide general readers with an overview of incentive-enabled IoT from background, motivations, and enabling techniques. Particularly, we first present the fundamentals of IoT data network infrastructure, and several key incentive techniques for IoT are described in details, including blockchain, game theory, and AI. We next provide an extensive review on the use of these incentive techniques in a number of key IoT services, such as IoT data sharing, IoT data offloading and caching, IoT mobile crowdsensing, and IoT security and privacy. Subsequently, we explore the potential of incentives in important IoT applications, ranging from smart healthcare, smart transportation to smart city and smart industry. The research challenges of incentive techniques in IoT networks are highlighted, and the potential directions are also pointed out for future research of this important area.