Sensor as a Company: On Self-Sustaining IoT Commons

Beyond the "smart home" and "smart enterprise", the Internet of Things (IoT) revolution is creating "smart communities", where shared IoT devices collectively benefit a large number of residents, for transportation, healthcare, safety, and more. However, large-scale deployments of IoT-powered neighborhoods face two key socio-technical challenges: the significant upfront investment and the lack of information on local IoT needs. In this paper, we present SensorInc, a new IoT deployment paradigm that incentivizes residents to design and manage sensor deployment through sensor liquefaction. By turning shared sensors into liquid (i.e. tradeable) assets akin to company stock or bond, users can design and invest in promising IoT deployments and receive monetary rewards afterward. We present the detailed design of SensorInc and conduct two case studies (parking occupancy sensors and air pollution sensors) to study the self-sustainability and deployment challenges of such a paradigm.