Patent ID: 8311161

Claim:
A system for detecting a communication received at a plurality of receiving antennas from a plurality of transmitting antennas, each of the transmitting antennas transmitting one of a plurality of symbols in a constellation, the system comprising: a sphere detector module responsive to a terminate signal for requesting a result, the sphere detector module performing a depth-first search until the depth-first search terminates in response to the terminate signal requesting the result, the sphere detector module performing the depth-first search that evaluates a respective distance of at least one node of a leaf level in response to the communication received at the receiving antennas, the sphere detector module performing the depth-first search that selects the result from the at least one node in response to the respective distance, wherein the result includes a selected node of the at least one node of the leaf level, and, for each of the transmitting antennas, the selected node identifies a corresponding one of the symbols in the constellation, with the symbol detected as transmitted by the transmitting antenna.