A message-passing algorithm for spectrum access in cognitive radio relay networks

This work addresses the spectrum access problem in cognitive radio relay networks. In our setup, primary users allow secondary users access to the channel (spectrum) as long as they agree to relay primary users' data in addition to their own. We desire to maximize the network usage by determining the best configuration of matching between primary users and secondary users. This problem can be formulated in a form similar to maximum weighted matching. Given this formulation, we develop an algorithm for this problem using affinity propagation that is fully distributed. We test its performance and demonstrate convergence.