  It is unrealistic to assume that all nodes in an ad hoc wireless network
would be willing to participate in cooperative communication, especially if
their desired Quality-of- Service (QoS) is achievable via direct transmission.
An incentivebased auction mechanism is presented to induce cooperative behavior
in wireless networks with emphasis on users with asymmetrical channel fading
conditions. A single-object secondprice auction is studied for cooperative
partner selection in singlecarrier networks. In addition, a multiple-object
bundled auction is analyzed for the selection of multiple simultaneous partners
in a cooperative orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) setting. For
both cases, we characterize equilibrium outage probability performance, seller
revenue, and feedback bounds. The auction-based partner selection allows
winning bidders to achieve their desired QoS while compensating the seller who
assists them. At the local level sellers aim for revenue maximization, while
connections are drawn to min-max fairness at the network level. The proposed
strategies for partner selection in self-configuring cooperative wireless
networks are shown to be robust under conditions of uncertainty in the number
of users requesting cooperation, as well as minimal topology and channel link
information available to individual users.
