Joint pricing and spectrum allocation for cognitive radio network

Cognitive radio network (CRN) is proposed as a promising technology to significantly improve spectrum utilization efficiency. In CRN, primary users (PUs) are allowed to lease out their unused spectrum to share with cognitive users (CUs). To stimulate the spectrum sharing behavior of PUs, PUs will be encouraged to set up appropriate pricing strategies, so that their revenue can be maximized through offering spectrum to CUs. In this paper, we address the issue of joint pricing and spectrum allocation in CRN. A quantitative description of CU spectrum demand is formulated and a novel joint spectrum pricing and spectrum allocation scheme based on cooperative game theory is proposed to achieve the maximization of joint utility of all PUs. Formulating the optimization problem as a matching problem of bipartite graph and applying Kuhn-Munkres (K-M) algorithm, the optimal pricing and spectrum allocation strategy can be obtained. Numerical results demonstrate that all PUs can achieve the optimal coalition pricing under cooperative game framework and the corresponding sub-channel allocation strategy can be achieved.