Performance Evaluation of Underlay Cognitive Multi-hop Networks Over Nakagami-m Fading Channels

We derive a closed-form bit error rate (BER) formula for underlay cognitive N-hop networks operated over Nakagami-m fading channels where N is the arbitrary integer. This formula is corroborated by Monte Carlo simulations and useful for evaluating the network performance under different parameters such as modulation level, path-loss, maximum transmit power, tolerable interference power level, fading model, and the number of hops. Numerical results illustrate that underlay cognitive multi-hop networks suffer a high error floor and the BER performance not only depends on the number of hops but also the network topology. For the linear network model, the higher the number of hops, the better the network performance.