HEAD: A hybrid spectrum trading framework for QoS-aware secondary users

Secondary spectrum trading is an important approach to increase spectrum utilization. According to the length of duration of spectrum usage, it can be categorized into long-term leasing and short-term rental. Existing works have largely focused on one pricing scheme only. In this paper, we propose a new spectrum trading framework called HEAD for a hybrid market between spectrum owner (SO) and secondary users (SU). The entire time span is divided into multiple periods of equal length. In the long-term leasing, SUs pay a subscription fee to obtain spectrum in all future periods. In the short-term rental, SUs contend for channel usages of one period via auction. We consider the users´ QoS requirements and propose statistical approximation methods to estimate the auction outcome and analyze how SO optimizes revenue. In addition, we examine the SUs´ strategic choices and the equilibrium. The benefits of the proposed hybrid pricing framework are evaluated and verified through extensive simulations.