Distributed Interference-Aware Cooperative MAC based on Stackelberg Pricing Game

International audienceCooperative communication can significantly enhance the efficient utilization of spectrum in wireless networks.The performance of wireless cooperative networks depends on careful medium access control and resource allocation such asrelay selection and cooperative link scheduling policy for interference management. Most of the previous centralized worksrely on precise instantaneous channel state information (CSI). In this paper, considering the impact of multi-relay linksinterference on relay selection and dynamic spectrum sharing, we propose a fully distributed relay medium access control (MAC)scheme for wireless cooperative networks based on Stackelberg game framework with only one-hop local CSI, where source nodesthat have their own information to send act as leader users and the others act as follower users. In this scenario, each relay nodeprices its spectrum resource to the corresponding source node to maximize its revenue. In addition, the proposed scheme not onlyhelps source nodes to find relay nodes by channel gains and obtain an optimal system performance, but also helps relay nodes tomaximize their revenue by asking suitable resource price. The interactions between the sources and relays leads iteratively to aStackelberg equilibrium, in which the cooperation system achieves high throughput and low transmission delay. Simulationresults are presented to show the effectiveness of the proposed approach