International Journal of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Vol 16, No 5: October 2026

Robust resource allocation in multi-cell UE-specific RIS-assisted D2D relay networks under imperfect CSI

Kayode Popoola (Dyson Institute of Engineering and Technology)
Ayodeji Ajani (University of Bolton Manchester)
Stuart Nicholson (Dyson Institute of Engineering and Technology)
Muheeb Ahmed (Dyson Institute of Engineering and Technology)
Srilatha Narayangari Pamuri (Dyson Institute of Engineering and Technology)
Ibrahim Bala Alhassan (Coventry University)



Article Info

Publish Date
01 Oct 2026

Abstract

Device-to-device (D2D) communication enhances spectral efficiency but remains constrained by limited transmission range, underlay interference, and the half-duplex overhead of conventional relays. User equipment-specific reconfigurable intelligent surfaces (UE-RIS) offer a promising alternative by enabling passive beamforming to strengthen D2D links without additional spectrum consumption. However, existing studies typically assume perfect channel state information (CSI) and single-cell operation, limiting their applicability to practical deployments. This paper proposes a robust multi-cell resource allocation (RMRA) framework for UE-RIS-assisted D2D relay networks under imperfect CSI. A hybrid uncertainty model is adopted, combining statistical Gauss-Markov CSI errors for intra-cell links with bounded norm-ball uncertainty for inter-cell links. The joint optimisation of resource reuse, transmit power allocation, and RIS phase configuration is formulated as a stochastic mixed-integer nonlinear program that maximises network spectral efficiency while satisfying outage and quality-of-service constraints. To efficiently solve the problem, a three-stage algorithm is proposed comprising distance-pruned Hungarian assignment, robust power control using Bernstein-type inequality and S-procedure based semidefinite programming, and soft actor-critic (SAC) based passive beamforming. Simulation results show that RMRA achieves a 94% D2D access rate at light load and over 75% at full load, improves sum spectral efficiency by 34.7% and 70.2% over AF relaying and direct D2D, respectively, attains 118.5 bits/s/Hz/W energy efficiency, and maintains 30.2 bits/s/Hz under severe CSI uncertainty.

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Journal Info

Abbrev

IJECE

Publisher

Subject

Computer Science & IT Electrical & Electronics Engineering

Description

International Journal of Electrical and Computer Engineering (IJECE, ISSN: 2088-8708, a SCOPUS indexed Journal, SNIP: 1.001; SJR: 0.296; CiteScore: 0.99; SJR & CiteScore Q2 on both of the Electrical & Electronics Engineering, and Computer Science) is the official publication of the Institute of ...