Game Theoretic Analysis of Joint Rate and Power Allocation in Cognitive Radio Networks

Spectrum sharing is an essential enabling functionality to allow the coexistence between primary user (PU) and cognitive users (CUs) in the same frequency band. In this paper, we consider joint rate and power allocation in cognitive radio networks by using game theory. The optimum rates and powers are obtained by iteratively maximizing each CU’s utility function, which is designed to guarantee the protection of primary user (PU) as well as the quality of service (QoS) of CUs. In addition, transmission rates of some CUs should be adjusted if corresponding actual signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR) falls below the target SINR. Based on the modified transmission rate for each CU, distributed power allocation is introduced to further reduce the total power consumption. Simulation results are provided to demonstrate that the proposed algorithm achieves a significant gain in power saving.