Summary
In this paper, performance analysis of orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) based amplify‐and‐forward (AF) cooperative relaying network with selection combining (SC) scheme over independently but not necessarily identically distributed (i.n.i.d.) frequency selective Nakagami‐m fading channels is investigated. Theoretical analysis of closed‐form expressions for outage probability and average symbol error rate (ASER) have been proposed, while considering nonlinear distortions (NLD) introduced by nonlinear power amplifier (NLPA) at the relay node. Asymptotic behavior of outage probability is also analyzed in high signal‐to‐noise ratio (SNR) regime to evaluate the diversity order of the system under several conditions. Further, impacts of fading parameter and NLD are highlighted on the outage probability, ASER and the diversity order of the system under different situations. The derived theoretical results are compared with Monte' Carlo simulations and verify the correctness of theoretical results for different system configurations and SNR levels. The derived expressions are generalized, and hence, can be easily used for analysis over variety of fading environments. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.