Spectrum Sharing with Interference Management for Distributed Cognitive Radio Networks: A Potential Game Approach

In the present paper, a game theoretic framework of joint channel selection and power allocation for spectrum sharing in distributed cognitive radio networks is proposed. The objective of the proposed scheme is to investigate the performance of the lower- priority system in spectrum sharing where the lower-priority users utilize the spectrum by selecting the channel and transmit power while aware of the interference to the higher-priority users. The utility function that captures the cooperative behavior to minimize the interference and the satisfaction to improve the throughput is defined. The proposed joint channel selection and power allocation game can be formulated as a potential game and it is guaranteed to converge to a Nash equilibrium when the best response dynamic is performed. The simulation results verify the convergence of the proposed potential game and reveal that the proposed utility function with coefficient adjustment improves the throughput performance of the lower-priority system compared to that of without coefficient adjustment, while ensuring the Quality of Service (QoS) constraint at the higher-priority system.