On blockchain integration into mobile crowdsensing via smart embedded devices: A comprehensive survey

As an integral part of Internet of Things (IoT), mobile crowdsensing (MCS) via smart embedded devices has recently gained significant attention for being effective in a wide range of applications and services, particularly in smart environments. In order to collect data, MCS systems seek ubiquitous sensing services from smart mobile devices such as smartphones, tablets and wearables, which are equipped with a variety of sensors, and provide analytics, visualization and recommendation services. Despite its benefits, the distributed nature of MCS results in confronting a number of challenges in terms of incentives, privacy, security and dependability. In this survey, blockchains, as a state of the art technology that builds on decentralization, immutability and consensus characteristics, are comprehensively reviewed with their potential to address main challenges in MCS. To this end, this article reviews the MCS platforms by investigating the existing works along with their challenges. Furthermore, the article reviews blockchain-integrated MCS solutions to address the incentive mechanisms, data quality, and privacy and security issues. This survey’s objective is not only to analyze existing works but also to present potential directions for future research to leverage MCS and blockchains in smart environments.