Communication gains from relaying can be acquired even in the absence of altruistic or dedicated relays. To accommodate this, spectrum leasing for cooperation paradigm prescribes that the potential relaying node is rewarded for its relaying role with a fraction of source's bandwidth. Recently, a two-hop spectrum leasing scheme was proposed that enables the source to employ the relay only to an extent it finds beneficial, preserving the remaining bandwidth for its direct transmission, if necessary. Such a solution adds flexibility that can be particularly useful for implementation in networks involving more than two hops. In this paper, we extend this setup to include the relay selection problem in a two-hop network scenario with multiple potential relays. Since the potential relays are selfish nodes, their competitive attitude for accessing the spectrum needs to be taken into account. In addition to Stackelberg game framework used in the original setting with one relay, auction theory is applied to model the relay selection process. Analysis and numerical results are provided, demonstrating that the source-destination pair can achieve significant benefits emanating from the competitive nature of the relays.

Cooperative jamming paradigm in secure communications enlists network nodes to transmit noise or structured codewords, in order to impair the eavesdropper's ability to decode messages to be kept confidential from it. Such an approach can significantly help in facilitating secure communication between legitimate parties but, by definition, assumes dedicated and/or altruistic nodes willing to act as cooperative jammers. In this paper, it is demonstrated that cooperative jamming leads to meaningful secrecy rate improvements even when this assumption is removed. A distributed mechanism is developed that motivates jamming participation of otherwise non-cooperative terminals, by compensating them with an opportunity to use the fraction of legitimate parties' spectrum for their own data traffic. With the goal of maximizing their data transmission rate priced by the invested power, cooperative jammers provide the jamming/transmitting power that is generally proportional to the amount of leased bandwidth. The fully decentralized framework is facilitated through a game-theoretic model, with the legitimate parties as the spectrum owners acting as the game leader, and the set of assisting jammers constituting the follower. To facilitate the behavior of non-cooperative and competitive multiple jammers, auctioning and power control mechanisms are applied for a follower sub-game in a two-layer leader-follower game framework.

Spectrum leasing for cooperation is a promising paradigm that motivates relaying participation of non-altruistic nodes. It prescribes the trade where the node is rewarded for its relaying role with a fraction of source's bandwidth. Proposed spectrum leasing schemes typically involve hard decision at the source, whether to completely rely on the relay or preserve the whole bandwidth for itself. This approach can pose limitations in multihop networks, with the source refusing to share its bandwidth with multiple nodes on its route, and instead choosing to transmit directly to its destination. The benefits for both the source and potential relays would thus be lost. In this paper, we propose a two-hop spectrum leasing scheme that enables the source to employ the relay only to an extent it finds beneficial, preserving the remaining bandwidth for its direct transmission, if necessary. Unlike the previous mechanisms, the proposed scheme is based on explicit interaction and negotiation about the leased bandwidth. Stackelberg game is used to model this interaction. Comprehensive analysis for the proposed scheme and numerical results demonstrate significant benefits for all the participating nodes.

Secure communication rates can be facilitated or enhanced via deployment of cooperative jammers in a multi-terminal environment. Such an approach typically assumes dedicated and/or altruistic jamming nodes, investing their resources for the good of the whole system. In this paper, we demonstrate that jammers can be recruited to provide significant improvements of secrecy rates even when this assumption is alleviated. A game-theoretic framework is proposed where a source node, towards the maximization of its secrecy rate, utilizes the jamming services from a set of non-altruistic nodes, compensating them with a fraction of its bandwidth for transmission of their user data. With the goal of maximizing their user-data transmission rate priced by the invested power, potential cooperative jammers will provide the jamming/transmitting power that is generally proportional to the amount of leased bandwidth. Elaborating initially on a single-jammer scenario, interaction between the source and a cooperative jammer is modeled as the Stackelberg leader-follower game. The scheme is further extended to involve multiple potential jammers, applying competition mechanisms such as the auctioning and power control game, while maintaining the Stackelberg framework.

In this paper, we propose a new algorithm for bilateral multi-attribute negotiations between autonomous agents with nonlinear utilities and detail on its application for pricing the wireless access services. In particular, we consider a scenario in which a wireless service provider adapts its offer of wireless bandwidth to the dynamics of the access demand and of the available spectrum. To achieve this, the provider performs one-to-one negotiations with the customers over the service transmission rate and the service price. The proposed negotiation algorithm is a practical solution for pricing those customers that require constant-rate service. Numerical simulations provide in-depth illustration of the scheme performance for various network settings.

A novel distributed scheme that combines cooperative ARQ with the spectrum leasing paradigm is proposed and analyzed. The strategy harnesses the opportunistic gains of cooperative communications, while inherently providing a spectrum-rewarding incentive for the otherwise non-cooperative relays to assist the source's transmission. As in cooperative ARQ, the source might decide to hand over the possible retransmission slots to nearby stations that were able to decode the original transmission. In the proposed scheme, however, in exchange for the cooperation, the relaying station is also awarded an opportunity to exploit the retransmission slot for its own traffic. Arbitration of relays' retransmissions is performed via an auction mechanism, with the source, the competing relays and the transmission slot acting as the auctioneer, the bidders and the bidding article, respectively. Auction theory (more generally, the theory of Bayesian games) is applied to analyze the scheme performance. It is noted that the setting here can be alternatively seen as a practical framework for implementation of property-rights cognitive radio networks. Numerical results and analysis show that the proposed scheme enables an efficient dynamic resource allocation that provides relevant gains (e.g., transmission reliability) for both the original source (primary) and the cooperating nodes (secondary users).

Dense frequency reuse makes the intercell interference control a crucial issue in cellular systems. Due to large signalling overhead, multicell processing and resource scheduling are not practicable solutions, at least today. We propose a decentralized transmission scheduling scheme where each base station exploits the knowledge of the intercell interference to locally allocate the resources. The idea is inspired by cognitive radio system where each (secondary) user accesses the spectrum according to the level of interference and thus it schedules the transmission over interference-free frequency intervals. Similarly, here each base station schedules the access to time or frequency resource so as to mitigate the generated interference and maximize its goodput. In this decentralized approach, the intercell signalling is replaced by the level of interference estimated locally and independently within each cell. Equilibria are analyzed using game theory with each scheduler acting as a player that locally maximizes its objective (goodput) while interacting (or interfering) with others.

We propose and analyze a novel decentralized mechanism that motivates otherwise non-cooperative stations to participate as relays in cooperative ARQ protocol. Cooperation incentive is provided by the possibility for the source to lease a portion of retransmission slot for the traffic of relaying terminals. To further leverage the opportunistic nature of cooperative ARQ and obtain a fully decentralized solution, the (motivated) relaying nodes compete for access to the retransmission slot by trying to make the best retransmission offer. Effective arbitration of cooperative retransmissions is performed using auction theory (bidding), with the source in the role of the auctioneer, the relaying nodes acting as the bidders and the (use of the) retransmission slot as the bidding article. It is noted that the proposed solution can be seen as a practical framework for the implementation of cognitive radio networks running according to the property-rights model (spectrum leasing). Numerical results and analysis confirm the efficient dynamic resource allocation property of the proposed scheme, revealing the relevant gains in terms of expected number of (re)transmissions required for successful data delivery for both the source (primary) and the cooperating (secondary) nodes.

In this paper, we consider the energy efficiency of truncated hybrid-ARQ (HARQ) protocols in a single-user link (i.e., non-collaborative HARQ), or with the inclusion of a relay station (i.e., collaborative HARQ). The total energy consumption accounts for both the transmission energy and the energy consumed by the transmitting and receiving electronic circuitry of all involved terminals (source, destination and, possibly, the relay). Using the transmission time and transmission energy of each packet as optimization variables, the overall energy is minimized under an outage probability constraint for HARQ Type I, HARQ chase combining and HARQ incremental redundancy protocols (in the latter case, a tight lower bound is considered). Numerical optimization provides insight into the optimal design choices that enhance energy efficiency with HARQ protocols. It is shown, for instance, that, if the circuitry energy consumption is not negligible, selection of the transmission energy is not only dictated by the outage constraint, but is also significantly affected by the need to reduce the number of retransmissions. Our results also demonstrate the performance limitations of collaborative HARQ protocols in terms of energy efficiency, when circuitry consumption is properly accounted for.

The concept of cognitive radio (or secondary spectrum access) is currently under investigation as a promising paradigm to achieve efficient use of the frequency resource. In this paper, we consider a decentralized cognitive radio model based on spectrum leasing, whereby a primary (licensed) user leases its bandwidth for a fraction of time to a network of independent secondary (unlicensed) terminals in exchange for cooperation. On one hand, the primary user decides whether to exploit (space-time coded) cooperation from the network of secondary terminals in order to maximize its own transmission rate. On the other hand, secondary terminals accept to cooperate with the primary only if compensated with a large enough fraction of time for their own transmission, towards the goal of maximizing their rate discounted by the overall cost of transmitted power. The considered model is studied in the framework of Stackelberg games, with the primary and the set of secondary users modelled as the (Stackelberg) game leader and the follower, respectively. Numerical results show that spectrum leasing based on trading secondary spectrum access for cooperation is a promising framework for cognitive radio.

The concept of cognitive radio (or secondary spectrum access) is currently under investigation as a promising paradigm to achieve efficient use of the frequency resource by allowing the coexistence of licensed (primary) and unlicensed (secondary) users in the same bandwidth. According to the property-rights model of cognitive radio, the primary terminals own a given bandwidth and may decide to lease it for a fraction of time to secondary nodes in exchange for appropriate remuneration. In this paper, we propose and analyze an implementation of this framework, whereby a primary link has the possibility to lease the owned spectrum to an ad hoc network of secondary nodes in exchange for cooperation in the form of distributed space-time coding. On one hand, the primary link attempts to maximize its quality of service in terms of either rate or probability of outage, accounting for the possible contribution from cooperation. On the other hand, nodes in the secondary ad hoc network compete among themselves for transmission within the leased time-slot following a distributed power control mechanism. The investigated model is conveniently cast in the framework of Stackelberg games. We consider both a baseline scenario with full channel state information and information-theoretic transmission strategies, and a more practical model with long-term channel state information and randomized distributed space-time coding. Analysis and numerical results show that spectrum leasing based on trading secondary spectrum access for cooperation is a promising framework for cognitive radio.

As the distance between terminals in modern wireless networks tends to decrease, the energy consumption issue, conventionally assumed to be exclusively dominated by the transmission power, needs to be revaluated. In particular, retransmission (ARQ) protocols that typically reduce the transmission energy required to obtain a given error probability on the channel (at the expense of a larger delay), also increase the energy consumed by the circuitry other than the power amplifier. In this paper, the energy efficiency of hybrid-ARQ type I, chase combining and incremental redundancy protocols in Rayleigh fading channels, is analyzed by accounting for the energy consumed by the transmitting and receiving electronic circuitry. It is shown that the advantages of hybrid-ARQ protocols in terms of energy consumption strictly depend on the transmission range.