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Institute for Digital Communications

Prof. Dr.-Ing. Robert Schober University of Erlangen-Nrnberg

Master Thesis
Rewarding Mechanisms in Cooperative Communications
Cooperation in communications is a recently evolved concept that promises increased coverage and improved performance in future networks. The principal idea is that the users of a network assist each other in relaying their messages to the Base Station, thereby reducing path-loss and thus achieving better performance. A major issue that needs to be tackled, however, prior that such technology is put into practice, is the willingness of the network users to participate in the cooperation process. On the one hand, the network designer wants to attract more users to join the cooperative pool. On the other hand, users are reluctant to donate their resources to the common pool, unless a certain reward is promised. Imagine that you are the system designer. How could you address the above problem? One idea resembles the air-mile rewarding programs oered by airline carriers. Each time a user is consuming energy for assisting another user, the system rewards him with a "voucher". With this voucher the rewarded user will be able to "recruit" another user at another time, given that the amount of power that the second user will consume for the sake of the rst user does not exceed a value that is determined by the voucher points. With this in mind, the goal of this work is to investigate the managing of the above rewarding mechanism in simulated cooperation scenarios. Assuming that the users are randomly located in a given area, we will conduct simulations and examine rewarding algorithms that address the following topics: a) From the networks perspective, how much compensation should a user be rewarded per donated unit of power. b) From the users perspective (being at a given location), whether it is preferable to spend the rewarded power or transmit independently and save it for a later moment. Main guidelines for the work: Simulation of the considered system based on a given mobility model, e.g., the Random Waypoint Model. Suggested simulation tool: MATLAB. Investigation of algorithms that manage the rewarding mechanism. Assessment of the obtained results from the users and the networks perspective. Prerequisites Scientic skills Interest in wireless communications and signal processing, fundamental knowledge of digital communication systems (e.g. gained in lectures Digital Communications or Fundamentals of Mobile Communications) Some experience in MATLAB programming Fluent in English Diomidis Michalopoulos (room E 1.16), dio@LNT.de

Programming skills Language skills Supervisor