Joint Impact of RF Hardware Impairments and Channel Estimation Errors in Spectrum Sharing Multiple-Relay Networks

In this paper, we investigate the performance of a spectrum sharing decode-and-forward multiple-relay network (SSDMN) with direct link under the joint impact of two practical and detrimental imperfections, called transceiver hardware impairments (HIs) and channel estimation errors (CEEs). Here, we consider the hardware distortions induced by all the non-ideal secondary nodes and residual interferences originating from imperfect channel estimations. By taking these imperfections into account, we derive an exact closed-form expression for the outage probability of the considered SSDMN employing selection cooperation over independent and non-identical Rayleigh fading channels. We identify three important ceiling effects invoked by HIs, namely relay cooperation ceiling (RCC), direct link ceiling (DLC), and overall system ceiling. Specifically, we highlight the impact of these prevailing effects on the system’s performance and provide some useful insights about the tolerable level of HIs while designing the practical systems for a given rate requirement. We also illustrate that a potential direct link and a relaying link can, respectively, partially compensate for the incurred performance losses due to RCC and DLC effects. Moreover, we investigate the asymptotic behavior of outage probability to highlight the impact of HIs and CEEs on the achievable diversity and coding gains.