Auction-based Spectrum Leasing for Secure Information Transfer in Cognitive Radio Networks

This paper investigates the secure information transfer issue for cognitive radio networks by exploiting the spectrum leasing technique. The design objective is to improve the secrecy rate of the primary user, and meanwhile, create the transmission opportunities for the secondary users. To achieve this goal, we consider a system model where the primary user harnesses the assist of the secondary users in the form of cooperative transmitting. And in return, the primary user provides certain transmission opportunities over licensed spectrum for the cooperating secondary users. We propose an auction-based spectrum leasing scheme to jointly formulate the optimal cooperator selection and resource allocation problems. By analyzing and solving the dominant strategy equilibrium for the proposed scheme, we present reliable predictions for the system behavior and the achievable performances. Simulation results reveal that the proposed scheme could provide substantial gains for both the primary user and the cooperating secondary user.