CAREER: SpecMax: Spectrum Trading and Harvesting Designs for Multi-Hop Communications in CRNs                           

Project Information

Project Synopsis

The dilemma between wireless services’ booming growth and the unlicensed spectrum’s scarcity has shoved static spectrum allocation off the edge. Cognitive radio (CR) is a revolutionary paradigm which releases spectrum from shackles of authorized licenses, and enables unlicensed secondary users (SUs) to opportunistically access to the under-utilized licensed spectrum. Due to the great economic value of spectrum, CR technology has also promoted many spectrum trading designs in cognitive radio networks (CRNs). Unfortunately, most existing designs rely on the premise that the SUs’ hand-held devices have powerful CR capability, which may not be easily embedded into light-weight small-sized radios of SUs’ devices. Besides, existing designs mainly focus on per-user based spectrum trading for single-hop communications, and lack deep understanding of multi-hop end-to-end service provision. Moreover, the prevalent idea of choosing the best band makes secondary services vulnerable to interruption due to the returns of primary users. Finally, to facilitate spectrum trading, more accurate information of spectrum availability should be provided. Motivated by these facts, this project aims to construct a framework to investigate the spectrum trading in multi-hop CRNs, which includes the study of (1) designing a novel CRN architecture to facilitate the accessing of SUs without CR devices, (2) extending spectrum trading for multi-hop CR communications, (3) harvesting spectrum under spectrum uncertainty, and (4) constructing a fine-grained mobile spectrum map. The results of this project can advance the state of the art in spectrum trading designs and enrich the scientific knowledge of network designs and network economics. The project is thus crucial to the success of CRNs, which can provide great opportunities for job creation, greater productivity, and economic growth. This project also involves research publications/talks, curriculum development, minority student recruitment, training and mentoring, and outreach to K-12 students.

Personnel at UH (2015-2020)

  • Dr. Miao Pan, PI
  • Ms. Rui Chen, PhD Student
  • Mr. Dian Shi, PhD Student
  • Ms. Xinyue Zhang, PhD Student (Graduated in May 2021; Initial employment: Assistant Professor, CS, Kennesaw State University)
  • Ms. Jingyi Wang, PhD Student (Graduated in May 2019; Initial employment: Assistant Professor, CS, San Francisco State University)
  • Ms. Sai Mounika Errapotu, PhD Student (Joint with Dr. Zhu Han; Graduated in May 2018; Initial employment: Assistant Professor, ECE, University of Texas at El Paso)

Personnel at TSU (2014-2015)

  • Dr. Miao Pan, PI
  • Mr. Yawei Pang, MS Student (Graduated in August 2014, joining University of Florida as a PhD student in 2014)
  • Mr. Samuel Teferra, Undergraduate Student

Publications

Books and Book Chapters

  1. Xuanheng Li, Haichuan Ding, Yuguang Fang, Miao Pan, Pan Li, Xiaoxia Huang, and Savo Glisic, “Collaborative Spectrum Trading and Sharing for Cognitive Radio Networks,” Springer Nature, 2017.
  2. Miao Pan, Ming Li, Pan Li, and Yuguang Fang, “Spectrum Trading in Multi-Hop Cognitive Radio Networks,” Springer, 2015.

Magazine Publications

  1. Xuanheng Li, Haichuan Ding, Miao Pan, Beatriz Lorenzo, Jie Wang, and Yuguang Fang, “Service-Oriented Hybrid-Database-Assisted Spectrum Trading: A Blueprint for Future Licensed Spectrum Sharing,” IEEE Wireless Communications, Vol. 26, No. 6, pp. 156-163, December 2019.
  2. Haichuan Ding, Yuguang Fang, Xiaoxia Huang, Miao Pan, Pan Li, and Savo Glisic, “Cognitive Capacity Harvesting Networks: Architectural Evolution Towards Future Cognitive Radio Networks,” IEEE Communications Surveys and Tutorials, Vol. 19, No. 3, pp. 1902-1923, October 2017.

Journal Publications

  1. Xuanheng Li, Kajia Jiao, Fan Jiang, Jie Wang, and Miao Pan, “A Service-Oriented Spectrum-Aware RAN-Slicing Trading Scheme Under Spectrum Sharing”, IEEE Internet of Things Journal (J-IoT), Vol. 7, No. 11, pp. 11303-11317, November 2020.
  2. Xuanheng Li, Ruyi Xiao, Miao Pan, Fan Jiang, Nan Zhao, and Xianbin Wang, “Green Traffic Off-Loading over Uncertain Shared Spectrums with End-to-End QoS Guarantee”, IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology (TVT), Vol. 69, No. 9, pp. 9921-9937, September 2020.
  3. Xiaopeng Liang, Wenjun Xu, Hui Gao, Miao Pan, Jiaru Lin, Qian Deng, and Ping Zhang, “Throughput Optimization for Cognitive UAV Networks: A Three-Dimensional-Location-Aware Approach”, IEEE Wireless Communications Letters (WCL), Vol. 9, No. 7, pp. 948-952, July 2020.
  4. Xuanheng Li, Haichuan Ding, Miao Pan, Jie Wang, Haixia Zhang, and Yuguang Fang, “Statistical QoS Provisioning over Uncertain Shared Spectrums in Cognitive IoT Networks: A Distributionally Robust Data-Driven Approach”, IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology (TVT), Vol. 68, No. 12, pp. 12286-12300, December 2019.
  5. Lixin Li, Jiao He, Lie-Liang Yang, Zhu Han, Miao Pan, Wei Chen, Huisheng Zhang, and Xu Li, “Spectral- and Energy-Efficiency of Multi-Pair Two-Way Massive MIMO Relay Systems Experiencing Channel Aging”, IEEE Access, Vol. 7, pp. 46014-46032, April 2019.
  6. Xinyue Zhang, Jingyi Wang, Minglei Shu, Yinglong Wang, Miao Pan, and Zhu Han, “TPP: Trajectory Privacy Preservation against Tensor Voting Based Inference Attacks”, IEEE Access, Vol. 6, pp. 77975-77985, December 2018.
  7. Sai Mounika Errapotu, Jingyi Wang, Xuanheng Li, Zaixin Lu, Wei Li, Miao Pan, and Zhu Han, “Bid Privacy Preservation in Matching Based Multi-Radio Multi-Channel Spectrum Trading”, IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology (TVT), Vol. 67, No. 9, pp. 8336-8347, September 2018.
  8. Haijun Zhang, Ning Yang, Keping Long, Miao Pan, George K. Karagiannidis and Victor C.M. Leung, “Secure Communications in NOMA System: Subcarrier Assignment and Power Allocation”, IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications (JSAC), Vol. 36, No. 7, pp. 1441-1452, July 2018.
  9. Jingyi Wang, Sai Mounika Errapotu, Yanmin Gong, Lijun Qian, Riku Jäntti, Miao Pan, and Zhu Han, “Data-Driven Optimization Based Primary Users’ Operational Privacy Preservation”, IEEE Transactions on Cognitive Communications and Networking (TCCN), Vol. 4, No. 2, pp. 357-367, June 2018.
  10. Jingyi Wang, Yan Long, Jie Wang, Sai Mounika Errapotu, Hongyan Li, Miao Pan, and Zhu Han, “D-FROST: Distributed Frequency Reuse Based Opportunistic Spectrum Trading via Matching with Evolving Preferences”, IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications (TWC), Vol. 17, No. 6, pp. 3794-3806, June 2018.
  11. Haichuan Ding, Chi Zhang, Xuanheng Li, Jianqing Liu, Miao Pan, Yuguang Fang, and Shigang Chen, “Session-Based Cooperation in Cognitive Radio Networks: A Network-Level Approach”, IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking (ToN), Vol. 26, No. 2, pp. 685-698, April 2018.
  12. Wenjun Xu, Xue Li, Chia-Han Lee, Miao Pan, and Zhiyong Feng, “Joint Sensing Duration Adaptation, User Matching, and Power Allocation for Cognitive OFDM-NOMA Systems”, IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications (TWC), vol. 17, no. 2, pp. 1269-1282, February 2018.
  13. Yunan Gu, Chunxiao Jiang, Lin X. Cai, Miao Pan, Lingyang Song, and Zhu Han, “Dynamic Path To Stability in LTE-Unlicensed with User Mobility: A Matching Framework”, IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications (TWC), Vol. 16, No. 7, pp. 4547-4561, July 2017.
  14. Xuanheng Li, Yi Sun, Yuanxiong Guo, Xin Fu and Miao Pan, “Dolphins First: Dolphin-Aware Communications in Multi-hop Underwater Cognitive Acoustic Networks”, IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications (TWC), Vol. 16, No. 4, pp. 2043-2056, April 2017.
  15. Yanru Zhang, Lingyang Song, Miao Pan, Zaher Dawy and Zhu Han, “Non-Cash Auction for Spectrum Trading in Cognitive Radio Networks: A Contract Theoretical Model with Joint Adverse Selection and Moral Hazard”, IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications (JSAC), Vol. 35, No. 3, pp. 643-653, March 2017.
  16. Yi Liu, Rong Yu, Miao Pan, Yan Zhang and Shengli Xie, “SD-MAC: Spectrum Database-Driven MAC Protocol for Cognitive Machine-to-Machine Networks”, IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology (TVT), Vol. 66, No. 2, pp. 1456-1467, February 2017.
  17. Jingyi Wang, Wenbo Ding, Yuanxiong Guo, Chi Zhang, Miao Pan and Jian Song, “M3-STEP: Matching Based Multi-Radio Multi-Channel Spectrum Trading with Evolving Preferences”, IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications (JSAC), Vol. 34, No. 11, pp. 3014-3024, November 2016.
  18. Xuanheng Li, Haichuan Ding, Miao Pan, Yi Sun and Yuguang Fang, “Users First: Service-Oriented Spectrum Auction with a Two-Tier Framework Support”, IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications (JSAC), Vol. 34, No. 11, pp. 2999-3013, November 2016.
  19. Yan Long, Hongyan Li, Hao Yue, Miao Pan and Yuguang Fang, “SUM: Spectrum Utilization Maximization in Energy-Constrained Cooperative Cognitive Radio Networks”, IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications (JSAC), Vol. 32, No. 11, pp. 2105-2116, November 2014.

Conference Publications

  1. Kajia Jiao, Xuanheng Li, Miao Pan, Fan Jiang, and Ming Li, “Trading Based Service-Oriented Spectrum-Aware RAN-Slicing Under Spectrum Sharing”, IEEE Wireless Communications and Networking Conference (WCNC’20), Seoul, South Korea, April 6-9, 2020.
  2. Feng Hu, Bing Chen, Jingyi Wang, Ming Li, Pan Li, and Miao Pan, “MastDP: Matching Based Double Auction Mechanism for Spectrum Trading with Differential Privacy”, IEEE Global Communications Conference (GLOBECOM’19), Waikoloa, HI, December 9-13, 2019.
  3. Jingyi Wang, Xinyue Zhang, Wenjun Xu, Qixun Zhang, Zhiyong Feng, and Miao Pan, “Data-Driven Small Cell Placement Optimization with Users’ Differential Privacy for Wireless NGNs”, International Conference on Distributed Computing Systems (ICDCS’19), Dallas, TX, July 7-10, 2019. (Acceptance ratio: 132/668 = 19.76%)
  4. Ruliu Nie, Wenjun Xu, Zhi Zhang, Ping Zhang, Miao Pan, and Jiaru Lin, “Max-Min Distance Clustering Based Distributed Cooperative Spectrum Sensing in Cognitive UAV Networks”, IEEE International Conference on Communications (ICC’19), Shanghai, China, May 20-24, 2019.
  5. Xuanheng Li, Haichuan Ding, Miao Pan, Jie Wang, Haixia Zhang, and Yuguang Fang, “Data-Driven Service Provisioning over Shared Spectrums with Statistical QoS Guarantee”, IEEE Wireless Communications and Networking Conference (WCNC’19), Marrakech, Morocco, April 15-18, 2019.
  6. Xiaopeng Liang, Wenjun Xu, Miao Pan, Qian Deng, and Jiaru Lin, “Capacity Enhancement for Energy-Harvesting Cognitive Radio Networks: A NOMA-Enabled Joint Design”, IEEE Wireless Communications and Networking Conference (WCNC’19), Marrakech, Morocco, April 15-18, 2019.
  7. Jingyi Wang, Xinyue Zhang, Haijun Zhang, Hai Lin, Hideki Tode, Miao Pan, and Zhu Han, “Data-Driven Optimization for Utility Providers with Differential Privacy of Users’ Energy Profile”, IEEE Global Communications Conference (GLOBECOM’18), Abu Dhabi, UAE, December 9-13, 2018.
  8. Jingyi Wang, Yanmin Gong, Lijun Qian, Riku Jäntti, Miao Pan, and Zhu Han, “Primary Users’ Operational Privacy Preservation via Data-Driven Optimization”, IEEE Global Communications Conference (GLOBECOM’17), Singapore, December 4-8, 2017. (Best Paper Award)
  9. Oluwaseyi Omotere, Lijun Qian, Riku Jäntti, Miao Pan, and Zhu Han, “Big RF Data Assisted Cognitive Radio Network Coexistence in 3.5GHz Band”, International Conference on Computer Communications and Networks (ICCCN’17), Vancouver, Canada, July 31-August 3, 2017.
  10. Sai Mounika Errapotu, Jingyi Wang, Zaixin Lu, Wei Li, Miao Pan, and Zhu Han, “Bidding Privacy Preservation for Dynamic Matching Based Spectrum Trading”, IEEE Global Communications Conference (GLOBECOM’16), Washington, DC, December 4-8, 2016.
  11. Jingyi Wang, Wenbo Ding, Yuanxiong Guo, Chi Zhang, Miao Pan, and Jian Song, “Dynamic Matching Based Distributed Spectrum Trading in Multi-Radio Multi-Channel CRNs”, IEEE Global Communications Conference (GLOBECOM’16), Washington, DC, December 4-8, 2016.
  12. Jingyi Wang, Yan Long, Jie Wang, Sai Mounika Errapotu, Yuanxiong Guo and Miao Pan, “Distributed Spectrum Trading via Dynamic Matching with Evolving Preferences”, IEEE/CIC International Conference on Communications in China (ICCC’16), Chengdu, China, July 27-29, 2016.
  13. Xuanheng Li, Miao Pan, Yang Song, Yi Sun and Yuguang Fang, “Economic-Robust Session based Spectrum Trading in Multi-hop Cognitive Radio Networks”, IEEE Global Communications Conference (GLOBECOM’15), San Diego, CA, December 6-10, 2015. (Best Paper Award)
  14. Yunan Gu, Yanru Zhang, Lin X. Cai, Miao Pan, Lingyang Song and Zhu Han, “Exploiting Student-Project Allocation Matching for Spectrum Sharing in LTE-Unlicensed”, IEEE Global Communications Conference (GLOBECOM’15), San Diego, CA, December 6-10, 2015.
  15. Yanru Zhang, Yunan Gu, Miao Pan and Zhu Han, “Distributed Matching Based Spectrum Allocation in Cognitive Radio Networks”, IEEE Global Communications Conference (GLOBECOM’14), Austin, TX, December 8-12, 2014
  16. Yi Liu, Rong Yu, Miao Pan and Yan Zhang, “Adaptive Channel Access in Spectrum Database-Driven Cognitive Radio Networks”, IEEE International Conference on Communications (ICC’14), Sydney, Australia, 10-14 June, 2014
  17. Yan Long, Hongyan Li, Hao Yue, Miao Pan and Yuguang Fang, “Spectrum Utilization Maximization in Energy Limited Cooperative Cognitive Radio Networks”, IEEE International Conference on Communications (ICC’14), Sydney, Australia, 10-14 June, 2014.

Outreach and Education Activities for Broader Impact

Course Development

The research in this project is one of the main topics in joint undergraduate and graduate course ECE 5397/6397: Introduction to Cybersecurity PI Pan taught at Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at University of Houston from Spring 2016 to Spring 2020, and undergraduate course ECE 3436 Microprocessor Systems from Fall 2016 to Fall 2019. It was also one of the main topics in the undergraduate level courses CS 250: Computer Networks Fundamentals and CS 450: Network Management and Security, and the graduate course CS 541: Operating Systems the PI used to teach at Texas Southern University from 2014 to 2015. The research outcomes and network design methodologies developed in this project have been extensively used as the use cases and updates for undergraduate and graduate students to stimulate students’ interests in telecommunications.

Student Mentoring

With the project support, PI Pan has been able to support graduate and undergraduate students to carry out fundamental research on spectrum trading designs and develop new technologies for various mobile applications of multi-hop cognitive radio networks. Each week, the PI holds weekly research meeting to review the research progress and brainstorm new ideas. During the whole process, both graduate students and undergraduate students (including minority students) could not only learn to work on research problems together, but more importantly are trained on how to learn, think, and present, from which they could learn how to teach as well. Three female graduate PhD students (Sai Mounika Errapotu, Jingyi Wang and Xinyue Zhang) sponsored/partially sponsored by this project have successfully defensed their PhD dissertation and become tenure-track assistant professors in USA, and one MS Student (Yawei Pang) has successfully finished his MS study at TSU and joined University of Florida to pursuit his PhD degree. This research project is indeed fruitful and has trained strong professional work force in telecommunications.

Outreach Activities

PI Pan’s team present NSF funded research to female students (Grades 4-8) on “Chevron Girls Engineering The Future” in late March from 2016 to 2019.
2014 Math and Science Academy Summer Internship, Dulles High School

Links to Code Repositories

Github Code Links: https://github.com/C3Lab-code/