SMASHER: a strategy-proof combinatorial auction mechanism for heterogeneous channel redistribution

Abstract

Auction is believed to be an effective way to solve or relieve the problem of radio spectrum shortage, by dynamically redistributing idle wireless channels of primary users to secondary users. However, to design a practical channel auction mechanism, we have to consider five challenges, including strategy-proofness, channel spatial reusability, channel heterogeneity, bid diversity, and social welfare maximization. Unfortunately, none of the existing works fully considered the five design challenges. In this paper, we present the first in-depth study on the problem of dynamic channel redistribution by jointly considering the five design challenges, and present SMASHER, which is a Strategy-proof coMbinatorial Auction mechaniSm for HEterogeneous channel Redistribution. Our analyses show that SMASHER achieves both strategy-proofness and approximately efficient social welfare.