Joint spectrum load balancing and handoff management in cognitive radio networks: a non-cooperative game approach

We propose a non-cooperative game theory based algorithm for spectrum management problem in cognitive radio networks taking into account the spectrum handoff effects. The objective is to minimize the spectrum access time of Secondary Users (SUs) which are competing for spectrum opportunities in heterogeneous environment. In this paper, the preemptive resume priority (PRP) M/G/1 queuing model is used to characterize the multiple handoff and data delivery time of SUs. Also an explicit solution for channels selection probabilities of each SU is extracted for PRP M/M/1 model specifically. The effect of handoffs is considered as the interrupted packets which return to the SUs’ low priority queue when the high priority Primary User’s packets are arrived to take service. The queuing delay of SUs’ and the effect of these returned packets are considered in order to balance the load of SUs on channels so that the minimum spectrum access time is sensed by each SU. The non-cooperative spectrum load balancing with handoff management game is proposed to find a distributed solution for each SU. It is shown that this game has a unique Nash equilibrium point which can be achieved by SUs as decision makers. At this equilibrium, each SU incurs the minimum delay on all channels while the free spectrum holes of channels are utilized efficiently. Simulation results are provided to evaluate the performance of the proposed scheme in terms of spectrum access delay, fairness, and channels spectrum holes utilization.