Spectrum sharing strategy using bipartite matching for cooperative cognitive radio networks

In this paper, a spectrum sharing strategy in cooperative cognitive radio network (CCRN) is investigated. Specifically, a multi-phase cooperation architecture is proposed including cooperation partner selection and spectrum sharing among secondary users (SUs). The cooperation partners who are selected from SUs forward the data of primary users (PUs), and then acquire the spectrum access opportunities for their own transmissions as a reward. To improve the utility for the PU-SU cooperation pairs, the partner selection is modeled as an optimally weighted bipartite matching problem to maximize the total utility where energy efficiency is also considered. The partner SU further improves spectrum utilization by sharing the acquired spectrum with the surrounding SUs via cooperative network coding. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed partner selection and spectrum sharing approach adapts well to the dynamic traffic loads in CCRN.