Error Performance of NOMA-Based Cognitive Radio Networks with Partial Relay Selection and Interference Power Constraints

Non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA)-based cognitive radio (CR) networks have recently emerged as a promising solution to enhance the spectral efficiency and massive connectivity problems. In this paper, we investigate the error rate performance of relay-assisted NOMA with partial relay selection in an underlay cognitive radio network. In this setup, K relays are used to assist in transmission between secondary NOMA users and a secondary base station (SBS), where the relay (R) with the strongest link with the SBS is selected to amplify-and-forward (AF) its received signals to the secondary receivers. We derive an accurate approximation for the pairwise error probability (PEP) of the secondary users with imperfect successive interference cancellation (SIC). Subsequently, the derived PEP expression is utilized to deduce a union bound, which is considered as an upper bound on the bit error rate (BER). We further formulate an optimization problem to calculate the optimum power coefficients that minimize the derived union bound. Numerical and Monte Carlo simulation results are presented to corroborate the derived analytical expressions and give some useful insights into the error rate performance of each user.