Multi-path routing in dynamic spectrum access networks: A mechanism design approach

In this paper, we address the problem of incentive based routing in Dynamic Spectrum Access (DSA) networks, where each secondary node incurs a cost for routing traffic from a flow and also has a certain capacity that the node can provide to the flow. We propose a path auction scheme in which each secondary node announces its cost and capacity to the routing mechanism, both of which are considered as private information known only to the node. We design a route selection mechanism and a pricing function that can induce nodes to reveal their cost and capacity honestly (making our auction truthful), while minimizing the expected payment that needs to be given to the nodes that relay traffic (making our auction optimal). By considering capacity constraint of the nodes, we explicitly support multiple path routing. For deploying our path auction based routing mechanism in DSA networks, we provide polynomial time algorithms.