Robust Beamforming for Cognitive Multi-Antenna Relay Networks with Bounded Channel Uncertainties

In cognitive relay networks, the interferences from secondary users (SUs) and relays to primary users are constrained to be lower than a threshold. The interference constraints are difficult to satisfy when the channel state information (CSI) is imperfect. In this paper, we propose a robust beamforming scheme for the multi-antenna non-regenerative cognitive relay network where the multi-antenna relay with imperfect CSIs helps the communication of single-antenna SU. Our objective is to design a robust beamforming scheme which maximizes the system capacity subject to transmit power constraint and interference constraints. The bounded channel uncertainties are modeled using the worst-case model. The robust beamforming problem, neglecting the correlation of channel uncertainties, is reformulated as a convex semidefinite programming (SDP) by rank-one relaxation. This convex SDP is related with the worst-case relay transmit power minimization problem, which is further reformulated as a convex SDP, whose rank-one solution is proved to exist. Thus, we propose the suboptimal solution to the robust beamforming problem which is found effectively by solving two convex SDPs. Simulation results are provided to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed scheme.