2014 IEEE International Symposium on Dynamic Spectrum Access Networks (DYSPAN)
Joint Price and Power Allocation under Interference
Constraint for Dynamic Spectrum Access Networks
Ishtiaq Ahmad∗ , Zhiqing Wei∗ , Zhiyong Feng† , Yang Bai∗ , Qixun Zhang† , Ping Zhang†
∗†
Key Laboratory of Universal Wireless Communications, Ministry of Education
Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications Beijing 100876, P.R.China
email:∗ {ahmedishtiaq1971, zhiqingwei, baiyangbupt}@gmail.com, † {fengzy, zhangqixun, pzhang}@bupt.edu.cn
Abstract—This paper presents a Stackelberg game based
pricing strategy for secondary users (SUs) sharing spectrum
with primary user (PU). In the proposed model, PU imposes
interference price on SUs to earn revenue and maintain its
minimum data rate while SUs jointly adjust their power to
maximize their utility functions. Since the interference from SUs
to PU is kept under the interference constraint and SUs compete
against each other for power allocation, there is the need to
determine a power allocation strategy which converges to the
Stackelberg equilibrium (SE). Closed form expressions of price
and power allocation which satisfy both type of users in the
network are derived and verified with simulation.
Index Terms—Dynamic spectrum access, power optimization,
Stackelberg game, spectrum sharing, cognitive radio network.
I. I NTRODUCTION
Spectrum is a prime resource for wireless communication
and its scarcity makes its efficient utilization highly desirable
[1]. Thus dynamic spectrum access (DSA) is getting more
attention in next generation wireless communication networks.
In DSA the secondary network, facilitated with cognitive
radios, may dynamically access the unused/underused licensed
spectrum owned by the primary network without causing
harmful interference [2]. Two main approaches so far have
been developed in which a secondary user (SU) can access
the licensed spectrum. The first approach assumes that PU is
unaware of the presence of SU and SU uses spectrum sensing
[3][4] to exploit the idle period of PU. The second approach
is the spectrum sharing where the primary user (PU) is aware
of SUs existence and is willing to share its spectrum resources
with SU under certain interference constraint. In our work we
focus on spectrum sharing. In this mode there are many design
questions. How to control interference? How to determine
interference threshold? What is the benefit to licensed user
for allowing unlicensed user to share its spectrum resources?
[5].
A lot of work addresses radio resource allocation in channel
sharing. For example, in [6], a family of power allocation
schemes aimed at achieving high SU rate with spectrum
sharing cognitive radios is described. A generalized framework
for interference analysis with different secondary transmitter
powers and transmission probabilities is presented in [7]. SUs
admission and power control are investigated in [8] where
each secondary link has its minimum quality of service (QoS)
978-1-4799-2661-9/14/$31.00 ©2014 IEEE 141
constraint which is satisfied together with the interference
constraint.
In literature, some works focus on using game theory
for resource allocation. In game theoretic framework, utility
functions are designed to quantify the satisfaction of users
for getting resources from the common pool. Since the users
behave selfishly, the equilibrium point is not best strategy
globally. Therefor pricing needs to be added in the utility
functions to obtain system-wide desirable results [9]. In [10],
pricing based game model is presented for SUs power alloca-
tion in uplink when PU and SUs have common serving base
station. Existence of Nash equilibrium (NE) is proved and a
suboptimal algorithm is proposed for SUs power allocation
and primary service provider revenue maximization.
In this paper we formulate the power allocation of SUs as
a Stackelberg game where PU works as leader and imposes
interference price on SUs to control the interference. Con-
ventionally, PU interference tolerance is assumed fixed but
we propose dynamic power control so that PU can optimize
interference tolerance by adjusting its power according to its
minimum data rate requirement and the number of spectrum
sharing SUs. We consider non-uniform pricing for SUs and
obtain unique closed form solution for the price determina-
tion, thus conventional time-consuming exhaustive search for
optimal values is avoided. Based on the determined optimal
price, PU and SUs power can be easily determined.
The rest of the paper is organized as follows. Section II
describes the system model and problem setting. Closed form
expressions for price and power allocation are derived in
Section III. The numerical results are presented in Section
IV. Finally, Section V concludes the paper.
II. S YSTEM M ODEL AND P ROBLEM F ORMULATION
We consider the downlink transmission for DSA network
where N SUs coexist within the coverage area of the primary
network. PU/SU consists of Primary/Secondry Transmitter
(PT/ST) and Primary/Secondry Receiver (PR/SR) respectively.
Fig.1 shows the system model and it is assumed that all
secondary links use the same frequency band as the primary
link. To control the interference from secondary network, we
formulate bi-level Stackelberg game, which consists of one
leader and several followers competing against each other for
radio resources. In our model PU acts as the leader while
SUs act as followers. PU protects itself through pricing the
 2014 IEEE International Symposium on Dynamic Spectrum Access Networks (DYSPAN)

37
their power in a greedy manner. The objective of the game is
to find the Stackelberg game equilibrium (SE) where neither
VLJQDO PU nor SUs have the incentive to deviate from their strategy
LQWHUIHUHQFH
unilaterally. Since the Stackelberg game consists of two non-
cooperative sub-games, its equilibrium can be found through
35 perfect NE.
65 65
III. P RICE AND P OWER A LLOCATION
67 65 67 We adopt non-uniform pricing strategy, where PU sets
different price for each SU based on its induced interference.
For a given λi , first we calculate the optimal power p∗i of the
67 followers by solving the lower sub-game. Since utility function
(3) is concave, there exists at least one NE point which can
Fig. 1. System Model be calculated using typical water filling as
 +
1 pm gmi + σi2
p∗i (λi , pm ) = − . (4)
interference from SUs and earns revenue. The SUs adjust their λi gim hi
power allocation to maximize their individual utilities non-
The solution given by (4) is the optimal strategy of ith SU
cooperatively based on the imposed interference price. Let λ
if the interference price is known. We know that transmitting
= [λ1 , λ2 , ....., λN ] and p = [p1 , p2 , ....., pN ] denote the SUs
power has to be positive, thus the ith SU can only transmit if
interference price and power allocation vectors respectively,
(5) is satisfied.
the leader’s sub-game or upper sub-game can be written as
hi
 λi < . (5)
gim (pm gmi + σi2 )
max Um (pm , λ, p) = λi pi gim − um (pm − p̄m ) ,
pm >0,λ0 i
It means that if the interference price is too high, the respective
(1) SU will be removed from the game and not allowed to
p m hm transmit.
s.t. log(1 +  2
) > Rmin , (2) Now, to determine solution to the upper sub-game, lets first
i pi g im + σ m
consider the rate requirement of PU given in (2). We can write
where pi and pm are the transmitting powers of ith ST and PU power allocation as the following expression.
PT respectively, hm is the channel gain from PT to PR, gim min 
th 2 (eR − 1)( i pi gim + σm 2
)
is the cross channel gain from  i ST to PR and σ is the pm (p) = . (6)
hm
background noise. The term i pi gim in (2) represents the
integrated interference from the secondary network to PR Replacing the value of pi in (6) with (4), we can rewrite PU
while Rmin is the minimum rate requirement of PU. In (1),
 power allocation as a function of λ
i λi pi gim represents total revenue PU collects from SUs.  1 σ 2 gim

While um (pm − p̄m ) denotes the additional power required pm (λ) = R − i + Rσm2
, (7)
to create the interference tolerance for SUs transmission. i λi hi
um denotes marginal power cost and p̄m denotes the orig- min
(eR −1)
inal power required when the SUs are not operational i.e. where R=  g g
hm +(eRmin −1) i imh mi
.
log(1 + p̄mσ2hm ) ≥ Rmin . th
i
Similarly, from (4) and (7), i SU power can also be written
m
Similarly the followers’ sub-game or lower sub-game can as function of λ as
be expressed as   1
+
σ2 σi2 gim
p∗i (λ) = λi g1im − hii − ghmi
i
R i λi − hi + gmi
hi Rσ 2
m
pi hi (8)
max Ui (pi , λi ) = log(1 + ) − λi pi gim . (3)
pi >0 pm gmi + σi2 Now, replacing the value of pm and pi in (7) and (8)
respectively, the upper sub-game can be reformulated as
where hi denotes the channel gain from ith ST to the re-
spective SR, gmi is the cross channel gain from PT to ith   
λ g σ2
SR. In (3), the first term represents SUs transmission rate and max Um (λ) = i 1 − i himi i − λi gim hi
gmi
R i λi
1

the second term denotes the interference cost paid by ith SU. λ>0 2

 

σ g 2 1
 σi2 gim 2
SU can increase its transmission rate by increasing its power. − ihiim + σm − um R i λi − i hi + σm
However, increasing power will result in stronger interference (9)
to nearby PU, which will lead to increase in interference The objective function in (9) is concave, thus the ith SU
m (λ)
cost. This equilibrium can prevent the SUs from increasing optimal price λi ∗ can be determined by solving ∂U∂λ i
= 0.

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 2014 IEEE International Symposium on Dynamic Spectrum Access Networks (DYSPAN)

Proposition 3.1: The optimal solution of the objective IV. N UMERICAL R ESULTS
function (9) can be expressed as In this section we evaluate the performance of our proposed

solution by numerical simulation. We consider the condition
∗ um R

λi =  2
σi gim gim gmi 2 −
 σi2 gim
. (10) that three SUs sharing spectrum with one PU. Without loss
hi + hi R σ m i hi of generality, the noise power σ 2 is assumed to be unity
for all receivers. The average channel power gains between
For proof, the reader is referred to Appendix A.
STs and respective SRs and PT to SRs are supposed to be
Proposition 3.2: Assuming identical σi2 and gmi for all SUs,
identical and their values are set as 1 and 0.1 respectively. The
the optimal solution given by (10) must follow the following
channel power gains from STs to PR are assumed as follows:
condition
 
g1m = 0.01, g2m = 0.1, g3m = 1. It needs to be noted that
hi gim
 min gim − a hi all channel gains values are normalized w.r.t. highest channel
um R <  , (11)
2 2
 σi2 gim
gain. The purpose of assuming fixed channel gains is to study
σi + gmi R σm − i hi the impact of channel gains on interference price determination
and admission control of SUs. We set the value of additional
where a = gmi RN . power cost parameter as um = 0.001.
For proof, the reader is referred to Appendix B. Fig. 2 shows the interference price for all three SUs under
Next, lets
 arrange  all theSUs in descending  order
 as different Rmin values. It is obvious that the interference prices
h1 g1m h2 g2m hN gN m
g1m −a h1 > g2m −a h2 , ...., > gN m −a hN , for all SUs are increasing with Rmin . The interference price
then considering formula (11), the optimal interference price is highest for farthest user (SU1) and lowest for closest user
λ∗i can be written as (SU3). With increase in Rmin , interference price for SU3 and
SU2 become so high that at a certain point ( Rmin = 1.75 and
⎧  
⎪ 3.75 respectively), they cannot transmit with positive power,
⎪ √ 1 , ....., √ 1
dN
⎪
⎪ b1 +c1 sN b 
N +cN sN

hence are removed from the game. At Rmin = 3.75, only
⎪
⎪
⎪
⎪ if dN < hN
− a gN m
YN one user remains (SU1) in the game. Fig. 3 shows the power
⎪
⎪  gN m N hN

⎪
⎪ allocation of PU and SUs based on the interference price. The
⎪
⎪
⎪
⎪ √ 1 , ....., √ 1
, ∞ dN −1 power of PU increases with Rmin since it has to maintain
⎪
⎪ b1 +c1 sN −1 bN −1 +cN −1 sN −1
⎪
⎪  
its minimum data rate while the power of SUs is decreasing
⎪
⎪ if hN gN m
⎪
⎪ gN m − a N hN YN ≤ dN −1 < since the interference price is rising. PU readjusts its power
⎪
⎪
⎪
⎪ when the number of SUs changes in the game. It also needs
⎪
⎪  

⎪
⎪ hN −1 gN −1m to be noted that the power of SU1 is high even with high
⎪
⎪ gN −1m − a N −1 hN −1 YN −1
⎪
⎨ interference price. This is because its cross channel gain to
.
λ∗i = PU is the lowest thus its total cost λ1 p1 g1m remains low. The
⎪
⎪ .
⎪
⎪ reverse is true for SU3.
⎪
⎪  . 
⎪
⎪
⎪
⎪
⎪
⎪ √ 1
, ∞..., ∞ d1
⎪
⎪ b1 +c1 sN −1


3
⎪
⎪ 
⎪
⎪ if h2
− a g2m
Y2 ≤ d1 <
price for SU1
⎪
⎪ g2m 2 h2
price for SU2
⎪
⎪
2.5
price for SU3
⎪
⎪
⎪
⎪  

⎪
⎪ h1
− g1m
⎪
⎪ a 1 Y1 2
Interference price

g h
⎪
⎪
1m 1 The point at which the price for
⎪
⎪ SU2 and SU3 become so high that
⎪
⎩ 1.5 they can’t transmit with +ve power
∞ else, hence removed from the game

(12)
σ2 g 1
where aK = gmk RK K, bk = khkkm , ck =
gkmhgkmk ,
√ 2
K σ 2 g
dK = Kum RK , sK = RK σm − k=1 khkkm , YK = 0.5

 1
 .
2 +g 2
K 2
σ gkm
k 0
σk mk RK σm − k=1 hk 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4
PU minimun rate (bits/s/Hz)
It is obvious from the above expression
 that allSUs can

only
hN gN m
transmit if the condition dN < gN m − aN hN YN is Fig. 2. SUs price allocation vs. PU minimum rate requirement.
satisfied, otherwise some SUs will be removed from the game
and their price will be set as ∞. It can also be observed from
(12) that the interference price is unique for each SU thus the V. C ONCLUSION
SE of the game is unique. The optimal value of p∗m and p∗i In this paper, we develop a game theory based model which
can be easily determined by replacing the value of λ∗i in (7) jointly maximizes the utility functions of both primary and
and (8) respectively. secondary users. In the utility function, PUs minimum rate

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 2014 IEEE International Symposium on Dynamic Spectrum Access Networks (DYSPAN)

50 hi
power of PU − gmi RN
gim
power of SU1 λi < 
(16)
σi2 gim
σi2 + gmi R σm2 −
40 power of SU2
power of SU3 i hi
30
The point at which SU2 From (10) we can write
Power allocation (dB)

and SU3 are removed

from game
20

1
u R
m 

10 λi =   (17)
gim σi2 gim
hi σi2 + gmi R σm
2 −
i hi
0

From (16) and (17) we can obtain

−10
 

hi gim
 gim − a hi
μm R < 
−20
(18)
 σi2 gim

0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4

PU minimun rate (bits/s/Hz)
σi2 + gmi R σm 2 −
i hi
Fig. 3. PU and SUs power allocation vs. PU minimum rate requirement.
where a = gmi RN and 
h1
Let arrange all SUs in descending order as −
requirement is taken as constraint. Price based power alloca-      g1m
g1m h2 g2m hN gN m
tion strategy is adopted to keep interference from secondary
a h1 > g2m − a h2 , ...., > gN m − a hN and

network to primary network under tolerance level. Dynamic assume identical gmi , σi2 , for all SUs, then we can rewrite the
power control is applied at PU to adjust its interference condition (18), for all SUs transmission as
 

tolerance according to its minimum rate requirement and the hi gim

 min gim − a hi
number of SUs in the network. Unique closed form solution um R <  (19)
of the game is derived that guarantees the convergence to 

σi2 gim
the equilibrium. The performance of the proposed scheme is σi2 + gmi R σm 2 −
i hi
verified with numerical results.
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∗ um R

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Approximating λi i λ1i ≈ N we simplify above as

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