SPRITE: A novel strategy-proof multi-unit double auction scheme for spectrum allocation in ubiquitous communications

With the increasing number of handheld and mobile devices, the demand for available spectrum resource is experiencing a rapid growth. Auction has been widely used for spectrum resource allocation in ubiquitous communications due to its fairness. However, many existing spectrum auction schemes inherently limit users' ability to fully utilize the spectrum due to the assumption that the spectrum resource is single unit and indivisible. Besides, most of them fail to take into account of buyer/seller's distinctive demands in auction and consider spectrum allocation as single-sided auction. In this paper, we consider the multi-unit double auction problem under the context that multiple buyers/sellers have different demands to buy/sell. Particularly, we present a novel strategy-proof multi-unit double auction scheme (SPRITE). SPRITE establishes a series of bid-related buyer group construction and winner determination strategies. It improves the spectrum reusability and achieves sound spectrum utilization, fairness, and essential economic properties. In the theoretical analysis, we have shown the correctness, effectiveness, and economic properties of SPRITE and prove that SPRITE is strategy-proof. In the evaluation study, we further show that SPRITE can achieve multi-unit spectrum auction with better auction efficiency compared with existing double auction mechanisms. To the best of our knowledge, SPRITE is the first multi-unit double auction approach that guarantees the competitive fairness among buyers while remaining strategy-proof for spectrum allocation. Furthermore, the multi-unit double auction mechanism proposed in this work helps increasing flexibility of the ubiquitous devices for spectrum usage.