Performance evaluation of cognitive multi-relay networks with multi-receiver scheduling

In this paper, we investigate the performance of cognitive multiple decode-and-forward relay networks under the interference power constraint of the primary receiver wherein the cognitive downlink channel is shared among multiple secondary relays and secondary receivers. In particular, only one relay and one secondary receiver which offers the highest instantaneous signal-to-noise ratio is scheduled to transmit signals. Accordingly, only one transmission route that offers the best end-to-end quality is selected for communication at a particular time instant. To quantify the system performance, we derive expressions for outage probability and symbol error rate over Nakagami-m fading with integer values of fading severity parameter m. Finally, numerical examples are provided to illustrate the effect of system parameters such as fading conditions, the number of secondary relays and secondary receivers on the secondary system performance.