Auction theory, as a subfield of
economics, provides useful tools to model, analyze, and optimize radio resource
management in cognitive radio environments. By using an auction, radio
resources such as subchannel, time slot, and transmit power can be allocated
among licensed and unlicensed users in the system, following market laws. Due
to the flexibility of mechanism design, there are various auction mechanisms
that have been applied to cognitive radio systems with different characteristics.
In this article, an overview of the basics of general auctions is provided
first. Then the motivations and specific design issues in applying auctions to wireless
network architectures and protocols are discussed. Then a review the state of
the art in the use of auction theory and mechanism design in cognitive radio
networks is provided. This will enable the readers to have a general view of
auction fundamentals, as well as the recent development and applications of
auction theory in the emerging cognitive wireless networks.