Contract design for relay-based cooperative communication with hidden channel state information

In cooperative communication, relay nodes help forwarding the information of the source node in case of failure in communication between source and destination. However, in the presence of asymmetric information between the source and potential relay nodes, the relay communication becomes an issue of great concern. To resolve the matter incurred by the existence of asymmetric information, the intrinsic availability of the relay-destination channel state information at the relay node can be exploited. In such case, the source node as an uninformed party not just stimulates relays to participate in cooperative communication, but also incites relays to reveal their channel state information in a trustworthy manner. In this paper, the problem of cooperation incentives under the existence of asymmetric information is studied. The principle of contract theory is applied to cooperative communication and an incentive compatible and individually rational contract is proposed to relay nodes. The designed contract consists of a set of power-credit pairs and offers credit to relays as a reward for participation. To evaluate the accuracy of the proposed scheme, a network system under two different information scenarios is simulated and the effects of the information asymmetry on its performance and sustainability are discussed.