Patent ID: 8155071

Claim:
A system for cross-layer allocation of a spectral resource, comprising: a media access controller (MAC) including an allocation circuit, wherein the allocation circuit is configured to assign a portion of the spectral resource to a spatially multiplexed communication in response to a signal to noise ratio (SNR); and a physical (PHY) layer including: a plurality of transmitting antennas for transmitting the spatially multiplexed communication in the portion of the spectral resource, the transmit antennas configured to transmit corresponding ones of a plurality of symbols in a constellation, a plurality of receiving antennas for receiving the spatially multiplexed communication from the transmitting antennas, an estimating circuit coupled to the allocation circuit of the MAC and the receiving antennas, the estimating circuit configured to determine the SNR of the spatially multiplexed communication received at the receiving antennas, and a sphere detector circuit coupled to the allocation circuit of the MAC and the receiving antennas, the sphere detector circuit configured to calculate a plurality of respective costs for a plurality of possible combinations of the symbols in the constellation, each of the possible combinations including one of the symbols for each of the transmitting antennas, the sphere detector circuit configured to calculate the respective costs of the possible combinations from the portion of the spectral resource of the spatially multiplexed communication received at the receiving antennas, the sphere detector circuit further configured to select one of the possible combinations in response to the respective costs, wherein the sphere detector detects the symbols of the one of the possible combinations to be the corresponding symbols of the spatially multiplexed communication transmitted from the transmitting antennas.