Game theoretic approach to dynamic spectrum access with multi-radio and QoS requirements

Dynamic spectrum access using cognitive radio is regarded as a disruptive technology to improve spectrum efficiency. The deployment of dynamic spectrum access in cognitive radio network (CRN), however, raises a great challenge to meet the quality-of-service (QoS) requirements of cognitive radio (secondary) users while protecting licensed/primary users from harmful interference. While there have been many techniques developed to dynamic spectrum access for secondary users, most of them have not considered maximization of both utilities of users and revenues of spectrum providers. In this paper, we introduce a novel approach for dynamic spectrum access in CRN using two stage Stackelberg game where multi-radio cognitive radio users (the followers) maximize their utilities while satisfying QoS and budget constraints, and at the same time, the spectrum providers (the leaders) offer competitive prices to maximize their revenues. Necessary condition and closed form for the existence of the Stackelberg equilibrium are presented. Simulation results verify that the proposed approach reaches Nash equilibrium.