Enforcing truth-telling with game theory in relay networks

In wireless relay networks, the source selects relay nodes to help forward the signal to the destination. The selection is performed under the relays´ reported information (e.g., amplitude of channel gain). Since the information is the private of relays, the source will not be able to tell whether the reported is true or not. Thus, the autonomous relays may expect to report fake information to maximize their own payoff, degrading the system-wise performance. An AGV mechanism based on the incomplete-information game theory is investigated in the paper. This scheme not only enforces truth-telling on the relay node but also provides the fairness among relay nodes in terms of payoff balancing. As the destination knows the real information, it determines the relay´s payoff firstly, and then the source leverages these payoff with respect to the reported information. This two-fold approach forces the relay nodes always to report their true information to attain larger payoff. Simulation results demonstrates the uniqueness of the Bayesian equilibrium and show that the equilibrium can be attainted when relay nodes report their true channel information. The fairness among relay nodes is verified as well.