Sensing Throughput Optimization in Fading Cognitive Multiple Access Channels With Energy Harvesting Secondary Transmitters

The paper investigates the problem of maximizing expected sum throughput in a fading multiple access cognitive radio network when secondary user (SU) transmitters have energy harvesting capability, and perform cooperative spectrum sensing. We formulate the problem as maximization of sum-capacity of the cognitive multiple access network over a finite time horizon subject to a time averaged interference constraint at the primary user (PU) and almost sure energy causality constraints at the SUs. The problem is a mixed integer non-linear program with respect to two decision variables namely spectrum access decision and spectrum sensing decision, and the continuous variables sensing time and transmission power. In general, this problem is known to be NP hard. For optimization over these two decision variables, we use an exhaustive search policy when the length of the time horizon is small, and a heuristic policy for longer horizons. For given values of the decision variables, the problem simplifies into a joint optimization on SU \textit{transmission power} and \textit{sensing time}, which is non-convex in nature. We solve the resulting optimization problem as an alternating convex optimization problem for both non-causal and causal channel state information and harvested energy information patterns at the SU base station (SBS) or fusion center (FC). We present an analytic solution for the non-causal scenario with infinite battery capacity for a general finite horizon problem.We formulate the problem with causal information and finite battery capacity as a stochastic control problem and solve it using the technique of dynamic programming. Numerical results are presented to illustrate the performance of the various algorithms

Stackelberg Game for Distributed Time Scheduling in RF-Powered Backscatter Cognitive Radio Networks

In this paper, we study the transmission strategy adaptation problem in an RF-powered cognitive radio network, in which hybrid secondary users are able to switch between the harvest-then-transmit mode and the ambient backscatter mode for their communication with the secondary gateway. In the network, a monetary incentive is introduced for managing the interference caused by the secondary transmission with imperfect channel sensing. The sensing-pricing-transmitting process of the secondary gateway and the transmitters is modeled as a single-leader-multi-follower Stackelberg game. Furthermore, the follower sub-game among the secondary transmitters is modeled as a generalized Nash equilibrium problem with shared constraints. Based on our theoretical discoveries regarding the properties of equilibria in the follower sub-game and the Stackelberg game, we propose a distributed, iterative strategy searching scheme that guarantees the convergence to the Stackelberg equilibrium. The numerical simulations show that the proposed hybrid transmission scheme always outperforms the schemes with fixed transmission modes. Furthermore, the simulations reveal that the adopted hybrid scheme is able to achieve a higher throughput than the sum of the throughput obtained from the schemes with fixed transmission modes