Cooperative and Non-Cooperative Games for Spectrum Sharing in Cognitive Radio Networks: A Comparative Study

Spectrum sharing in cognitive radio networks is essential to ensure effective communication between secondary users. Game theory is suitable to be applied to the spectrum sharing strategies since it considers strategic interactions between users. There are two types of games based on the ability to communicate between users: cooperative game and non-cooperative game. In this paper, the two spectrum sharing methods using cooperative and non-cooperative games are analyzed and compared. The numerical analysis shows that both the cooperative game and the non-cooperative game have their own best operation environment, in terms of the secondary user population.