Abstract
The Internet of Things (IoT) has revolutionized the connectivity of physical devices, leading to an exponential increase in multimedia wireless traffic and creating substantial demand for radio spectrum. Given the inherent scarcity of available spectrum, Cognitive Radio (CR)-assisted IoT emerges as a promising solution to optimize spectrum utilization through cooperation between cognitive and IoT nodes. Unlicensed IoT nodes can opportunistically access licensed spectrum bands without causing interference to licensed users. However, energy constraints may lead to reduced cooperation from IoT nodes during the search for vacant channels, as they aim to conserve battery life. To address this issue, we propose a Punishment-reward-based Cooperative Sensing and Data Forwarding (PR-CSDF) approach for IoT data transmission. Our method involves two key steps: (1) distributing sensing tasks among IoT nodes and (2) enhancing cooperation through a reward and punishment strategy. Evaluation results demonstrate that both secondary users (SUs) and IoT nodes achieve significant utility gains with the proposed mechanism, providing strong incentives for cooperative behaviour.