Quality of service assurance-based auction for spectrum sharing systems

Abstract

Spectrum sharing has emerged as a promising solution to address the radio frequency spectrum bottleneck. The FCC has recently proposed a spectrum sharing framework that introduces a spectrum access system as the governing entity that manages access to spectrum for primary and secondary users to coexist. An important aspect of dynamic spectrum management is the pricing of spectrum from the perspective of both the primary and secondary users. Existing auction-based spectrum sharing models do not take into consideration an important aspect of successful secondary user operation: the duration of the available spectrum opportunity. In this paper we propose an auction-based spectrum sharing framework that statistically accounts for the accuracy of the estimates of spectrum availability duration. The proposed auctioning process allows both the PU and the SU to iteratively adjust their evaluation about the available spectrum opportunities over time and to achieve a price combination that maximizes their objectives. A method is proposed to statistically assure spectrum availability, supplementing the reporting method. Hidden Markov models and non-stationary hidden Markov models are used to estimate the activity of the spectrum, with simulation results showing high prediction accuracy.