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.