Distributed Energy Efficiency Optimization for Multi-User Cognitive Radio Networks Over MIMO Interference Channels: A Non-Cooperative Game Approach

Energy efficiency (EE) optimization is investigated for a multi-user cognitive radio network (CRN) over multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) interference channels (ICs). To reduce the system overhead due to information exchange among the secondary CR uses (SUs), the EE optimization problem is formulated as a non-cooperative game, where each SU transmitter competes against the other SU pairs by optimizing its transmit covariance matrix. Specifically, each multi-antenna SU maximizes locally its energy efficiency in terms of the number of bits transmitted per unit energy consumption, subject to the per-SU transmit power constraint and the primary user (PU) perceived total interference constraint. It is proved that the formulated non-cooperative game admits at least one Nash equilibrium (NE), and the sufficient condition for a unique NE is derived subsequently. Primal decomposition is employed in the local EE optimization problem to relax the coupling PU perceived interference constraint such that fully distributed operation is allowed. A distributed iterative EE optimization algorithm (DIEEOA) is then proposed to obtain the unique NE, which is shown to converge to the global optimum. Linear precoding techniques are employed to mitigate the impacts of multi-user interference and imperfect channel state information (CSI). Through numerical simulations, effectiveness of the proposed scheme is validated and the system setting parameters' impacts on the performance are studied.