Optimal Service Rate in Cognitive Radio Networks With Different Queue Length Information

Cognitive radio (CR) technology effectively overcomes spectrum inefficiency by providing the capability that unlicensed users can share the radio frequency spectrum with licensed users. In this paper, we consider a CR system with heterogeneous users. A single primary user (PU) randomly generates service requests and a licensed band processes these requests. This PU band also can be flexibly accessed by secondary users (SUs) if available. The CR system is regarded as a preemptive priority queueing system. Under different information levels, we investigate the equilibrium strategic behaviors of PU and SUs. Based on users' strategies, we study SU's sojourn time (i.e., the period beginning from the time an SU request enters the system and ending from the time the SU request is completed), and obtain the analytical solutions of SU's mean sojourn time. By theoretical and numerical analysis, the SU's mean sojourn time is found not decreasing with the service rate of PU. This phenomenon is counterintuitive, and it implies the increase of the service rate of PU does not necessarily reduce the mean sojourn time of SU. In this sense, we investigate and find optimal service rates of PU in different information levels to meet the PU's QoS requirement and simultaneously to maximize SU's throughput from the viewpoint of the service providers.