Game Theoretic Analysis of Post Handoff Target Channel Sharing in Cognitive Radio Networks

Handoff in cognitive radio networks (CRNs) is a situation that arises whenever a secondary user (SU) has to switch from its current channel to a new target channel in case the primary user (PU) reclaims the current channel. Often when a SU switches to a target channel, it finds that it has to share the target channel with the coexistent users. These coexistent users can either be the interrupted or non-interrupted SUs who also wish to share the same channel. Long waiting in a queue or simultaneous access to the channel may decrease the SU's and network's throughput considerably. The SUs may even behave selfishly to maximize their own throughput. This paper analyzes the interactions and behavior of the SUs during the target channel sharing through non-cooperative, mixed strategic, and cooperative games. The benefits of the SUs and the overall network is analyzed by finding the Nash equilibrium and the Nash bargaining solution (NBS) for the non-cooperative, mixed strategy, and cooperative game respectively.