Spectrum sublet game among secondary users in cognitive radio networks

Abstract

Dynamic spectrum sharing can improve the efficiency of spectrum utilization. Spectrum trading between primary users (PUs) and secondary users (SUs) is a popular and efficient way to fulfill this kind of spectrum sharing. In this paper we present a novel spectrum trading mechanism which operate among secondary users. More specifically, some secondary users which has leased spectrum from PUs can sublet it to other SUs to reduce their own leasing cost. Then all of the SUs can share these spectrum bands to conduct data transmission respectively. This leads to a new multi-leader multi-follower (MLMF) game which is different from existing works. The existence of Nash equilibrium of this formulated game is proven by redefining it as a shared MLMF constraint game. A decentralized algorithm is then proposed to find Nash equilibrium of this two tiers game with only local information. Simulations are provided to illustrate the convergence and effectiveness of the proposed algorithm.