Collaborative spectrum trading and sharing for cognitive radio networks

Spectrum trading is one of the most promising approaches to enabling dynamic spectrum access (DSA) in cognitive radio networks (CRNs).With this approach, unlicensed users (a.k.a. secondary users) offer licensed users (a.k.a. primary users) with monetary rewards or improved quality of services (QoSs) in exchange for spectrum access rights. In this chapter, we present a comprehensive introduction to spectrum trading. First, we provide a brief introduction to DSA and CRNs as the background and motivation for the spectrum trading. Then, we present various state-of-the-art spectrum trading mechanisms for spectrum sharing. Finally, by analyzing various design issues in these mechanisms, we introduce the concept of service-oriented spectrum trading and offer a novel collaborative network architecture, called a cognitive mesh assisted network, to effectively utilize unused licensed/unlicensed spectrums with high spectral efficiency. We expect that this chapter provides readers with basic understanding on spectrum trading technology and foster future research initiatives.