Fair and Efficient Spectrum Splitting for Unlicensed Secondary Users in Cooperative Cognitive Radio Networks

Abstract

In cooperative cognitive radio networks (CCRNs), a licensed primary-user (PU) is allowed to leverage several unlicensed secondary-users (SUs) to relay its traffic. In this paper, a staged dynamic spectrum allocation (DSA) scheme is proposed for CCRNs. In the first stage, the network is uncongested. A simple pricing based DSA scheme is proposed for the PUs to lease their idled frequency bands to the SUs. And, hence, the initial quality of service (QoS) demands (in terms of the minimum rate requirements) of the PUs and the SUs are both satisfied through direct transmission on the allocated frequency bands. In the second stage, the network reaches the full-loaded situation. Therefore, a cooperative relaying based DSA scheme is proposed to stimulate the PUs to split more extra frequency bands to fulfill the increased QoS demands of the SUs, on condition that the QoS of the PUs are well maintained. By applying the cooperative bargaining game theory in the proposed cooperative relaying based DSA, on the one hand, the SUs can get fairness rate-rewards from the PUs according to the level of contribution that they can make to compensate the PUs for the rate-losses. Hence, the increased QoS demands of the SUs can be accommodated in short term. On the other hand, the PUs could retain the SUs successfully to obtain the long-term revenue, on condition that their QoS constraints are still satisfied. Finally, the analysis results of the proposed bargaining game theoretic DSA scheme (in the second stage) are testified through computer simulations.