Multi-Relay Assignment Based on Auction Theory in Cooperative Communication Networks

Cooperative communication can significantly improve the network performance and reliability. One of the most challenges in cooperative communication is how to assign relay nodes reasonably to realize the full performance gain, especially in large-scale cooperative communication networks. In this paper, we propose a novel multi-relay assignment scheme based on auction theory. In the multi-relay assignment scheme, each relay node makes an auction individually, and the source node decides whether to participate in the current relay auction or not and what the bid is. The source node who places the highest bid wins the relay auction. The bidding strategy is formulated according to the initial estimated bid and the winning payment predictive distribution. The source node initially estimated bid is obtained based on channel quality and the number of winning the other relay nodes. We use Bayesian nonparametric model to predict the winning payment distribution. Simulation results indicate that the proposed scheme can obtain better network sum utility through assigning relay nodes to the most needed source node while guaranteeing the fairness of source nodes.