An Iterative and Truthful MultiUnit Auction Scheme for Coordinated Sharing of Spectrum White Spaces

Abstract

We consider the use of dynamic auctions for coordinating spectrum sharing among secondary users, and propose an online multi-unit, iterative auction mechanism called VERUM that is truthful and efficient (the item is always won by the bidder who values it the most). VERUM is an adaptation of the well known Ausubel's clinching auction [1] to suit the dynamic spectrum sharing context. As a use case for VERUM, we consider TV white space (TVWS) spectrum sharing among home networks, and compare VERUM with two existing efficient and truthful multi-unit spectrum auction schemes, VERITAS and SATYA. Our evaluations, using real distributions of homes in a dense urban neighborhood in London and realistic TVWS spectrum availability maps for the UK, show that VERUM outperforms the other two schemes in terms of revenue, spectrum utilization and percentage of winning bidders.