Spectrum sharing in cooperative cognitive radio networks: A matching game framework

Abstract

Dynamic spectrum access allows the unlicensed wireless users (secondary users) to dynamically access the licensed bands from legacy spectrum holders (primary users) either on an opportunistic or a cooperative basis. In this paper, we focus on cooperative spectrum sharing in a wireless network consisting of multiple primary and multiple secondary users. In particular, we study the partner-selection and resource-allocation problems within a matching theory framework, in which the primary and secondary users aim at optimizing their utilities in terms of transmission rate and power consumption. We propose a distributed algorithm to find the solution of the developed matching game that results in a stable matching between the sets of the primary and secondary users. Both analytical and numerical results show that the proposed matching model is a promising approach under which the utility functions of both primary and secondary users are maximized.