Performance analysis of cognitive AF relay networks with multiuser switched diversity in Rayleigh fading channels

Abstract The multiuser switched diversity (MUSwiD) selection schemes are useful in reducing the required channel estimation load in wireless networks. In this paper, we propose and evaluate the performance of cognitive amplify-and-forward (AF) MUSwiD relay networks where a cognitive user is selected among a set of users for data reception. The selection process is performed such that the end-to-end (e2e) signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of the selected user satisfies a predetermined switching threshold. Such a user that satisfies this threshold is scheduled instead of the best user to receive its message from the secondary source. In the proposed system, we consider a cognitive source, a cognitive relay, a set of cognitive users, and a primary user. In this paper, an upper bound on the e2e SNR of a user is used in deriving of closed-form approximations for the outage probability and average symbol error probability (ASEP) of the studied system in addition to deriving the ergodic channel capacity. To get more about system insights, the performance is studied at the high SNR regime where approximate expressions for the outage probability, SEP, diversity order, and coding gain are derived. The derived analytical and asymptotic expressions are verified by Monte-Carlo simulations, and some numerical examples are provided to illustrate the effect of some parameters such as number of users and switching threshold on the system performance. Findings illustrate that the diversity order of the studied cognitive AF multiuser switched diversity relaying network is the same as its non-cognitive counterpart. Also, results show that the asymptotic results tightly converge to the exact ones, and the analytical bounds are indeed very tight, validating the accuracy of our approach of analysis. Furthermore, findings illustrate that the proposed MUSwiD user selection schemes are efficient in the range of low SNR values, which makes them attractive options for practical implementation in emerging mobile broadband communication systems. In contrast, these selection schemes are shown to be inefficient in the range of high SNR values where the multiuser diversity gain is noticeably degraded when they are implemented