Auction Schemes for Energy and Signal Cooperation in Two-Hop Networks

In this paper, we study a cooperative two-hop network with multiple sources and multiple relays where the energy required for the relays is transferred by the sources. In return, the relays transmit the sources´ data, along with their own data, to the destination. We consider the setup where each node´s objective is to maximize the amount of its own data delivered to the destination. We take a game theoretic approach and first model the selfish cooperation scenario with one source and one relay as a Stackelberg game where (i) the relay or (ii) the source is the leader. We demonstrate how the leader of the game takes advantage of its ability to compute the follower´s optimal strategy to influence the follower and improve its own utility. In both cases, we also consider the case with multiple followers. We employ Vickrey auctions to model the inter-follower competition. We identify the winner of the auction in both cases and observe that the followers must compromise their individual utilities to win the auction. Consequently, the leader´s utility turns out to be nondecreasing in the number of competing followers.