Carrier detection applicable for SISO, MIMO, MISO, and SIMO communications. A novel approach is presented to perform carrier detection for a signal found in any of a wide variety of communication systems including single-input-multiple-output (SISO), multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO), multiple-input-single-output (MISO) single-input-multiple-output (SISO), communication systems. This novel approach to performing carrier detection is more robust than those approaches existent in the art. By employing normalization with respect to power in determining a modified correlation function, there is less susceptibility to false detects. Also, this approach is quite robust to any circuitry DC offsets that may undesirably exist within a communication device that undergoes operational changes due to a variety of factors including environmental perturbations and/or changes in processing circuitry within the communication device (e.g., changes in gain control).