Evolutionary Game-Based Delegated Proof of Stake Consensus for Secure and Efficient Data Storage in Sensor Networks

Abstract

With the rapid expansion of sensor networks across domains such as environmental monitoring, industrial automation, and smart healthcare, ensuring secure and reliable data storage in resource-constrained environments has become a critical challenge. Traditional centralized storage systems struggle with data tampering, privacy leakage, and vulnerability to collusion among nodes. Blockchain technology, characterized by decentralization, immutability, and traceability, provides a promising foundation for trustworthy sensor data management. Among various consensus mechanisms, Delegated Proof of Stake (DPoS) has been recognized for its efficiency and low energy consumption, yet it faces two critical issues: limited incentives for ordinary sensor nodes to participate in voting and the risk of collusion that undermines fairness and stability. To overcome these limitations, this study proposes a blockchain-enabled sensor data storage framework incorporating a four-party evolutionary game model. The model explicitly captures the strategic interactions among cluster head nodes, ordinary sensor nodes, competing gateway nodes, and supervisory nodes, while integrating reputation evaluation, penalty enforcement, and supervisory oversight. Through evolutionary game analysis, the proposed framework reveals the stability conditions of node behaviors and identifies strategies that promote fair and secure consensus. Simulation results verify that the mechanism enhances node participation, suppresses collusion, accelerates consensus convergence, and achieves superior throughput and fault tolerance compared with existing schemes. This research provides theoretical insights and practical guidance for designing secure, efficient, and scalable blockchain-enabled sensor network data storage systems.