Optimal Resource Allocation in Random Access Cooperative Cognitive Radio Networks

Cooperative cognitive radio networks (CCRNs) incorporates cooperative communication into cognitive radio networks, in which, primary users lease their spectrum to secondary users, and in exchange, the primary users leverage secondary users as cooperative relays to enhance their own throughput. Mobile operators offload their Internet traffic to privately owned Wi-Fi access points (APs), much to the inconvenience of non-cellular users served by the APs. However, by employing the CCRN scheme, the mobile operator can lease a licensed channel to the AP, effectively doubling its capacity. In this paper, we propose an implementation of the CCRN framework applied to IEEE 802.11 WLANs. The cooperation is cast as a two-player bargaining game where the two players are the primary users (users of the mobile operator) and the secondary users (users of the AP before spectrum leasing) who bargain for either throughput share or channel access time share. The optimal resource allocation that ensures efficiency as well as fairness among users is provided by the Nash solution. Simulation results show that the users achieve higher throughput via the proposed CCRN scheme, thus providing the mobile operator (e.g., AT&T) and the private Wi-Fi provider (e.g., a Starbucks coffee shop) with incentives for cooperation.