Auction-based spectrum sharing among heterogeneous secondary networks

Exploitation of underutilized spectrum is an effective approach to meet the explosive demand for wireless communications. When heterogeneous secondary networks (HSNs) are allowed to operate in the same underutilized spectrum, their coexistence becomes a critical issue. This paper considers a coexistence network that involves one spectrum provider (SP) sharing unused spectrum resources to multiple HSNs. To coordinate interference-free spectrum sharing among these HSNs, this paper adopts an auction-based approach and designs an Unilateral Vickrey-Clarke-Groves (VCG)-based Auction for HSNs (UVAH). UVAH has three novel designs that make it a practical and efficient solution. Firstly, effective partition of auction regions takes into account the SP´s non-uniform amount of supply units in a target area. Secondly, based on the partition, UVAH provides HSNs with a highly expressive package bidding format to freely specify the amount of demand units and operating regions. Lastly virtual bidders by regions are introduced so as to resolve the revenue deficiency problem of VCG while retaining the property of truthfulness. With these three designs, UVAH maximizes the social welfare of the coexistence network without sacrificing the overall spectrum utilization. Numerical analysis shows that, compared to the existing solutions, UVAH improves spectrum utilization, spectrum revenue and HSN satisfaction by 9.96%, 17.26% and 121.73%, respectively.