Challenges in auction theory driven spectrum management

Dynamic spectrum markets of the future will involve complex spectrum transactions among operators and users. The nontrivial dynamics in channel quality and spatiotemporal spectrum availability call for new ways of spectrum allocation. In this article, we advocate that auction theory can play a decisive role in shaping this evolving landscape since auctions are agnostic to user utility functions, and can build versatile and lightweight allocation mechanisms. Starting from auction preliminaries, we discuss how various intrinsic features of spectrum markets can be addressed with a modified version of auctions.