Patent ID: 8326250

Claim:
A receiver comprising: an antenna array that generates a plurality of received signals from at least a first remote transmitter and a second remote transmitter; a plurality of receiver sections, coupled to the antenna array, that process the plurality of received signals to generate a plurality of down-converted signals; a receiver processing module, coupled to the plurality of receiver sections, that: generates a first plurality of channel estimate matrices corresponding to the first remote transmitter based on the plurality of down-converted signals; generates a first reception statistic from a sum based on the first plurality of channel estimate matrices, wherein the sum is proportional to a sum of: log 2 (det(I+(ρ*H i,j * H i,j )/n j )), where i=1 . . . k, H i,j represents each of the first plurality of reception matrices from the jth AP, ρ represents an average antenna signal to noise ratio, n j represents a number of antennas in the antenna array of the jth AP and “′” represents complex-conjugate transpose, and I represents an identity matrix; generates an association decision corresponding to one of: the first remote transmitter and the second remote transmitter, based on the first reception statistic.