On Designing Distributed Auction Mechanisms for Wireless Spectrum Allocation

Many spectrum auction mechanisms have been proposed for spectrum allocation problem, and unfortunately, few of them protect the bid privacy of bidders and achieve good social efficiency. In this paper, we propose PPS, a Privacy Preserving Strategyproof spectrum auction framework. We design two schemes based on PPS separately for 1) the single-unit auction model (SUA), where only single channel will be sold in the spectrum market; and 2) the multi-unit auction model (MUA), where the primary user subleases multi-unit channels to the secondary users and each of the secondary users wants to access multi-unit channels either. Since the social efficiency maximization problem is NP-hard in both auction models, we present allocation mechanisms with approximation factors of (1 + ε) and 32 separately for SUA and MUA, and further judiciously design strategyproof auction mechanisms with privacy preserving based on them. Our extensive evaluations show that our mechanisms achieve good social efficiency and with low computation and communication overhead.

Cognitive radio networks (CRN) is a promising technology for the efficient utilization of spectrum resource. However, how to dynamically allocate the spectrum combining with the characteristics of CRN is a crucial challenge for the mechanism design. In this paper, from the perspective of frequency-time characteristics of the spectrum opportunity in CRN and the secondary users' flexible requirements, we model the dynamic spectrum allocation problem as a knapsack problem and prove that maximizing the social welfare is NP-hard. Therefore, a spectrum auction mechanism is developed to approximate the optimal social welfare, and we prove its approximate ratio. Further, to guarantee the truthfulness, we devise a corresponding payment scheme. In simulation results, we show that no matter how many SUs are in the CRN, our scheme can approximate the maximal social welfare perfectly, and the spectrum utilization can be improved to over 96.5% or even larger.

The use of a combinatorial auction is believed to be an effective way to distribute spectrum to buyers who have diversified valuations for different spectrum combinations. However, the allocation of spectrum with combinatorial auctions mainly aims at optimizing over certain utility functions, e.g., social welfare, but ignores individual preferences of buyers and sellers, who have incentives to deviate from globally optimal allocation results to improve their own utility. In this paper, we explore the possibility of designing a new stable matching algorithm for combinatorial spectrum allocations. Starkly different from existing efforts on spectrum matching mechanism design, our proposed combinatorial spectrum matching framework not only allows buyers to express preferences towards spectrum combinations (rather than individual channels), but also computes the payment that should be transferred from buyers to sellers. Payment determination, while essential in spectrum exchange, has never been addressed in existing spectrum matching frameworks. We design a novel algorithm to achieve a stable combinatorial spectrum matching and to compute the corresponding payment profiles. We conducted an extensive array of experiments to compare the performance of stable combinatorial spectrum matching with spectrum auctions. It is shown that the combinatorial spectrum matching sacrifices little allocation efficiency in terms of social welfare and spectrum utilization, but achieves a much higher individual buyer utility, which will incentivize buyers to participate and comply with the allocation results.

In cellular networks, a recent trend in research is to make spectrum access dynamic in the spatial and temporal dimensions for the sake of efficient utilization of spectrum. In one such model, the spectrum is divided into channels and periodically allocated to competing base stations using an auction-based market mechanism. An “efficient” auction mechanism is essential to the success of such a dynamic spectrum access model. A key objective in designing an auction mechanism is “truthfulness.” Combining this objective with an optimization of some social choice function (such as the social-welfare or the generated revenue) is highly desirable. In this paper, we design polynomial-time spectrum auction mechanisms that are truthful and yield an allocation with O(1)-approximate social-welfare or revenue. Our mechanisms generalize to general interference models. To the best of our knowledge, ours is the first work to design polynomial-time truthful spectrum auction mechanisms with a constant-factor approximation of either the expected revenue or the social-welfare. We demonstrate the performance of our designed mechanism through simulations.

In recent years, a large number of spectrum mechanisms have been proposed, but these mechanisms ignore the security issues that arise during the design of the mechanism. In this paper, two secure models for sealed-bid spectrum auction are given based on Wang’s generic spectrum auction mechanism. One is the basic model and another improved model based on the basic model is proposed, which maximizes Social welfare while it is a Privacy-preserving Spectrum auction mechanism with public Verification namely SPSV. The SPSV scheme achieves the properties of maximizing the social welfare but also, by using the double paillier cryptosystem, it is privacy-preserving for bidders’ bids without revealing any sensitive information to auctioneer or agent during the entire spectrum auction. Oblivious transfer is applied to ensure the anonymity of bidders. Furthermore, the use of inequality comparison proof also provides the public verification of winner group to verify the comparison relationship between winner groups and losing groups. At last, the performance analysis are given.

Dynamic spectrum redistribution---under which spectrum owners lease out under-utilized spectrum to users for financial gain---is an effective way to improve spectrum utilization. Auction is a natural way to incentivize spectrum owners to share their idle resources. In recent years, a number of strategy-proof auction mechanisms have been proposed to stimulate bidders to truthfully reveal their valuations. However, it has been shown that truthfulness is not a necessary condition for revenue maximization. Furthermore, in most existing spectrum auction mechanisms, bidders may infer the valuations---which are private information---of the other bidders from the auction outcome. In this paper, we propose a Differentially privatE spectrum auction mechanism with Approximate Revenue maximization (DEAR). We theoretically prove that DEAR achieves approximate truthfulness, privacy preservation, and approximate revenue maximization. Our extensive evaluations show that DEAR achieves good performance in terms of both revenue and privacy preservation.

The explosive growth of data with the requirements of high reliability and low latency has posed huge challenges to the vehicular networks. One potential solution is to deploy the fog computing servers geographically closer to the vehicles to serve the vehicle-based applications in real time. However, due to the constraint of caching storage space as well as lack of tractable access mode selection and spectrum allocation algorithm, it is very challenging to balance the network transmission performance and fronthaul savings. In this paper, we investigate the joint optimization problem of access mode selection and spectrum allocation in fog computing-based vehicular networks. To solve the problem in an efficient way, the original high complexity optimization problem is divided into two subproblems. Wherein, the vehicle access mode selection problem is solved by Q-learning-based algorithm by considering spectrum allocation profiles and the fronthaul link cost. The randomly vehicular network topologies are modeled as CoX processes and the closed-form payoff expressions are derived by the stochastic geometry tools. On the other hand, the optimal spectrum allocation indicator value can be finally obtained via convex optimization. The analytical results for the proposed algorithm as well as the traditional baseline approaches are evaluated with different weight factors, which verify our theoretical analysis and confirm the proposed approach can achieve significant performance gains.

In this work, novel metaheuristic algorithms are proposed to address the network coding (NC)-based routing and spectrum allocation (RSA) problem in elastic optical networks, aiming to increase the level of security against eavesdropping attacks for the network's confidential connections. A modified simulated annealing, a genetic algorithm, as well as a combination of the two techniques are examined in terms of confidentiality and spectrum utilization. Performance results demonstrate that using metaheuristic techniques can improve the performance of NC-based RSA algorithms and thus can be utilized in real-world network scenarios.

Cognitive radio technology uses the ability of dynamic spectrum access to solve the problem of spectrum efficiency, but considered the view of application, the designs depended cognitive radio technology face the hardware restriction, and the cost is too expensive. Therefore the spectrum auction mechanism referenced to economic theory has a high value of application; the theory is a hot issue. However, existing spectrum auction mechanisms have faced with the problem of NP complexity, and also can not meet the demand of real-time. Based on the wireless spectrum auction theory, we have proposed an improved scheme of pricing mechanism by reverse algorithm.

In order to solve the problem of the multi-objective spectrum allocation on the joint optimization of maximal network utility and fairness of users in cognitive radio network, based on quantum bee colony theory and membrane computing, a novel multi-objective discrete combinatorial optimization algorithm, named membrane-inspired quantum bee optimization, is proposed. The global optimal solution of single objective can be searched in the elementary membranes, and Pareto front solutions which take account of network utility and fairness, can be obtained from skin membrane with the proposed method. The multi-objective optimization algorithm, which can solve both single objective and multi-objective optimization problems at the same time, is designed by the communication rules between membranes, the cooperative evolution of foraging behavior based on quantum state, and non-dominated sorting. Compared with classical color-sensitive graph coloring algorithm, genetic algorithm, quantum genetic algorithm, and particle swarm optimization under different objective functions, the proposed spectrum allocation method can search the global optimal solution of single objective as shown by the simulation results, and it is superior to classical spectrum allocation algorithms and existing intelligence spectrum allocation methods. The optimal Pareto front solutions of multi-objective spectrum allocation are also obtained.

There is a rapid development in wireless technologies with the increase of congestible frequency spectrums, research study reveals that there is a problem in spectrum management and spectrum allocation. To overcome this problem there is a new technology known as cognitive radio technology in wireless sensor networks called as CWSNs. The first standard for cognitive radio networks is IEEE 802.22, but this standard cannot overcome the problem of spectrum management and spectrum allocation. In this paper we propose a novel protocol in which spectrum allocation can be done by increasing the transmission range and communication quality, lowering the energy consumption and delays.

Dynamic spectrum markets for future wireless network devices will involve complex spectrum transactions. The spatio-temporal spectrum availability and the existence in the market of many diverse players with different power limit and channel bandwidth requirements, calls for new ways of allocating the spectrum [1]. Due to its perceived fairness and allocation efficiency, an auction strategy has been advocated as the best strategy for dynamic spectrum markets. However, designing an auction mechanism for a dynamic spectrum market is challenging because of the nature of the spectrum involved and the diverse secondary users, i.e., network players, involved, resulting into an auction mechanism with many complementary requirements. Many attempts from researchers result into spectrum auctions that meet only a few of these requirements. In this paper, a three-stage spectrum auction that not only meet most of these requirements but also ensures optimal spectrum allocation, is proposed.

Auction is an effective mechanism to distribute spectrum resources. Although many privacy-preserving auction schemes for spectrum allocation have been proposed, none of them is able to perform practical spectrum auctions while ensuring enough security for bidders' private information, such as geo-locations, bid values, and data access patterns. To address this problem, we propose SLISA, a lightweight auction framework which enables an efficient spectrum allocation without revealing anything but the auction outcome, i.e., the winning bidders and their clearing prices. We present contributions on two fronts. First, as a foundation of our design, we adopt a Shuffle-then-Compute strategy to build a series of secure sub-protocols based on lightweight cryptographic primitives (e.g., additive secret sharing and basic garbled circuits). Second, we improve an advanced spectrum auction mechanism to make it data-oblivious, such that data access patterns can be hidden. Meanwhile, the modified protocols adapt to our elaborate building blocks without affecting its validity and security. We formally prove the security of all protocols under a semi-honest adversary model, and demonstrate performance improvements compared with state-of-the-art works through extensive experiments.

In order to fully utilize spectrum, auction-based dynamic spectrum allocation has become a promising approach which allows unlicensed wireless users to lease unused bands from spectrum license holders. Because spectrum resources are reusable by users far apart, in some scenarios, spectrum is more efficiently utilized by awarding one band to multiple secondary users simultaneously, which distinguishes it from traditional auctions where only one user can be the winner. However, the multi-winner auction is a new concept posing new challenges in the traditional auction mechanisms, because such mechanisms may yield low revenue and are not robust to some newly-emerging collusion. Therefore, in this paper, we propose an efficient mechanism for the multi-winner spectrum auction with collusion- resistant pricing strategies, in which the optimal spectrum allocation can be solved by binary linear programming and the pricing is formulated as a convex optimization problem. Furthermore, a greedy algorithm is proposed to reduce complexity for multi- band auctions. Simulation results are presented to evaluate our proposed auction mechanisms.

Collaborative perception enables connected and autonomous vehicles (CAVs) to overcome individual viewpoint limitations by exchanging perception data, making effective resource allocation crucial for timely transmission. However, existing studies focus on resource allocation within a single collaborative perception group (CPG), limiting their effectiveness in multi-group collaborative perception systems. In such a system, each CPG contributes differently to the overall collaborative perception performance, and it is challenging to evaluate and represent CPG system-level utilities. Meanwhile, competition for shared spectrum resources leads to interference and complicates the joint optimization of collaboration mechanisms and spectrum allocation, which is intensified by their temporal scale misalignment. To address these challenges, we propose a Utility-Aware Hierarchical Reinforcement Learning method (UAHRL) to jointly optimize collaboration mechanisms and spectrum allocation. Specifically, we introduce a hierarchical framework to handle temporally misaligned decisions through joint training. The upper layer optimizes the collaborative relationship and granularity over a longer time scale to enhance system-level collaborative performance, while the lower layer allocates spectrum resources over a shorter time interval to fulfill individual CPG transmission demand and enhance system transmission efficiency. To represent and utilize system-level utility, we leverage a feature-based confidence map to assess CAVs’ perception capability and complementarity. A mixing network in the upper layer further decomposes global performance into individual CPG utilities, enabling utility-aware resource allocation. Simulations show that UAHRL outperforms baseline methods in system-level collaborative perception in multi-group systems.