Distributed spectrum access with energy constraint for heterogeneous channels

The demand for wireless communications services has increased the amount of spectrum resources required, promoting research interest in dynamic spectrum allocation schemes. There exist many promising solutions to allocate spectrum on a dynamic basis in order to get an efficient spectrum usage. One particular form is auction mechanism, tailored for allocating transmission rights on a short term basis to provide efficient allocation of scarce resources. However, most existing approaches are focused on homogeneous settings where all channels are treated as if they have the same propagation characteristics. In this work we consider two distributed auction schemes; sequential and concurrent, based on sequential ascending and combinatorial bidding, respectively, taking into account the propagation conditions of the channels (heterogeneous settings). The performance of these schemes is compared to two reference cases: (i) distributed homogeneous channels allocation (channel-agnostic case), and (ii) the centralized allocation scheme. Experimental results suggest that auction mechanisms which take into account the channel characteristics improve spectrum utilization under energy constraint. For wireless cellular networks with high unit energy cost (low coverage) concurrent access gives a better utilization of the spectrum and energy resources with higher service providers utility.