Spectrum Allocation Based on Game Theory in Cognitive Radio Networks Qiufen Ni 1 , Rongbo Zhu* , 1, 2 , Zhenguo Wu 1 , Yongli Sun 1 , Lingyun Zhou 1 , Bin Zhou 1 1. College of Computer Science, South-Central University for Nationalities, 708 nyuan Road, Wuhan 430074, China 2. Hubei Key Laboratory of Intelligent Wireless Communications, South-Central University for Nationalities, 708 Minyuan Road, Wuhan 430074, China email:qiufenni@yeah.net, twfx1027@163.com, yongsyl@126.com *Corresponding author: rongbozhu@gmail.com Abstract—As a kind of intelligent communication technology, the characteristic of dynamic spectrum allocation of cognitive radio provides feasible scheme for sharing with the spectrum resources among the primary user and secondary users, which solves the current spectrum resource scarcity problem. In this paper, we comprehensively explored the cognitive radio spectrum allocation models based on game theory from cooperative game and non-cooperative game, which provide detailed overview and analysis on the state of the art of spectrum allocation based on game theory. In order to provide flexible and efficient spectrum allocation in wireless networks, this paper also provides the general framework model based on game theory for cognitive radio spectrum allocation. Index Terms—Cognitive radio; Spectrum allocation; Game theory I. INTRODUCTION In recent years, with the development of wireless communication technology [1], wireless spectrum resource gradually decrease. And the main reason of spectrum scarcity is the reasonable of the spectrum allocation. Wireless spectrum resource is allocated to different wireless communication system by the spectrum authorities of each country in a fixed spectrum allocation way [2, 3], and were authorized to obtain wireless spectrum communication system, which will be used to maintain the communication in a large-scale region for a long time, even if the authorized user in a certain place and a certain time without using its authorized spectrum, other unauthorized users can't use the frequency spectrum resource, which lead to the waste of time and space, the low spectrum utilization rate. The situation doesn't adapt to the rapid development of wireless communication [4]. In order to solve the deficient problem of spectrum resources, people put forward the concept of Cognitive Radio (Cognitive Radio, CR). Cognitive radio is an intelligent wireless communication system. It realizes spectrum sharing and dynamic spectrum allocation by the spectrum sensing and intelligent learning ability of the system. It is visible that spectrum allocation is an important content in the cognitive radio. Spectrum allocation refers to allocate spectrum to one or more given nodes based on the node number which needs to access system and its service requirements. The choice of spectrum allocation strategy directly determines the system capacity, spectrum utilization rate and whether it will meet users' continuous changing needs because of different business. The current spectrum allocation technologies are classified as below (as shown in Figure 1): In the cognitive radio, spectrum allocation algorithm design choose spectrum allocation strategies that adapt to the time change characteristics of the wireless environment, which based on detecting available spectrums and controlling the transmit power, therefore, the cognitive radio spectrum allocation focuses on dynamic spectrum allocation [1]. At present, the cognitive radio spectrum allocation model mainly has six kinds: graph theory, the interference temperature, price auction, Partially Observable Markov Decision Process (POMDP), and the game theory. Game theory logic spreads over the whole economics, and is widely used in politics, science, psychology, evolutionary biology and other social and behavioral sciences. Hence using the game theory to analyze the cognitive radio is a good method. Reference [2] analyzed the convergence of various kinds of game models in cognitive radio network, which combined with interference control and spectrum allocation. Reference [3] used game theory to analysis the power control of the cognitive radio, interference avoidance and Call Admission Control (CAC) and so on. 712 JOURNAL OF NETWORKS, VOL. 8, NO. 3, MARCH 2013 © 2013 ACADEMY PUBLISHER doi:10.4304/jnw.8.3.712-722