Flexible Bidding in Service-Oriented Combinatorial Spectrum Forward Auctions

Abstract: Traditional combinatorial spectrum auctions mainly rely on fixed bidding and matching processes, which limit participants' ability to adapt their strategies and often result in suboptimal social welfare in dynamic spectrum sharing environments. To address these limitations, we propose a novel approximately truthful combinatorial forward auction scheme with a flexible bidding mechanism aimed at enhancing resource efficiency and maximizing social welfare. In the proposed scheme, each buyer submits a combinatorial bid consisting of the base spectrum demand and adjustable demand ranges, enabling the auctioneer to dynamically optimize spectrum allocation in response to market conditions. To standardize the valuation across heterogeneous frequency bands, we introduce a Spectrum Equivalent Mapping (SEM) coefficient. A greedy matching algorithm is employed to determine winning bids by sorting buyers based on their equivalent unit bid prices and allocating resources within supply constraints. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed flexible bidding mechanism significantly outperforms existing benchmark methods, achieving notably higher social welfare in dynamic spectrum sharing scenarios.