Patent ID: 7792227

Claim:
A method operable to detect carrier signals within multiple radio frequency (RF) reception pathways of a multiple input multiple output (MIMO) communication system, comprising: receiving multiple RF signals, wherein a RF signal is processed within each RF reception pathway; determining, for each RF reception pathway, a likelihood that a carrier signal is associated with the processed RF signal; expressing the likelihood that the carrier signal is associated with the RF signal as a set of carrier detection metrics for each RF reception pathway; combining the set of carrier detection metrics for each RF reception pathway to produce a composite metric representing a likelihood that the carrier signal is received by the MIMO communication system; and determining that the carrier signal is received by the MIMO communication system based on the composite metric; and wherein: determining the likelihood that the carrier signal is associated with the RF signal further comprises: determining a binary signal detection value for each RF signal based on the set of carrier detection metrics in order to produce a first set of binary signal detection values; combining arithmetically the set of carrier detection metrics for each RF reception pathway to produce the composite metric; determining a composite binary signal detection value from the composite metric; and logically combining the first set of binary signal detection values with the composite binary signal detection value to produce the carrier detection.