Spectrum pricing for cognitive radio networks with user’s stochastic distribution

Amid the dynamic spectrum access in cognitive radio networks, when complex spectrum conditions should be taken into account, how to price the spectrum in order to benefit primary systems in maximization is still under-investigated. In this paper, we devise a spectrum pricing method to address this issue in cognitive networks. In our proposed mechanism, leasing spectrum is collected for uniform selling and classified into three kinds of channels—high-quality channel, mid-quality channel and low-quality channel, respectively. They will be priced variously according to different interference characteristics caused by versatile path fading and user positions. In respond to heterogeneous channel qualities, secondary users also have own selection preferences. They can purchase one kind of channel for usage in based of channel quality and available budget. Then, we obtain the final pricing solution which is an iterative algorithm converging to a fixed point. Also, the existence of a pure Nash equilibrium is discussed to ensure the rationality of the method. In numerical results, we evaluate the effects of this proposal in spectrum pricing and primary systems’ profits.