Game-Theoretic Framework for Cooperative Relaying in Cognitive Radio Networks

We propose a novel Stackelberg game-theoretic framework to jointly manage spectrum resources and coordinate secondary users in a cognitive radio network with decode-and-forward cooperative relaying capability to extend coverage. The primary users (PUs) and secondary users (SUs) are mapped into leader-follower pairs in which the SUs purchase spectrum resources from their corresponding PU leaders. An optimal SU transmit strategy incorporating cooperative relaying is derived, and a hybrid scheduling algorithm incorporating both direct transmission and relay transmission is proposed. Experimental results show that the proposed Stackelberg game framework can achieve significantly better system performance with cooperative relaying compared to an SU direct transmission scheme.