In this application, an algorithm for decoding multiple input-multiple output (MIMO) transmission for communication systems is provided; the algorithm combines sphere decoding (SD) and zero forcing (ZF) techniques to provide near optimal low complexity and high performance constant time modified sphere decoding algorithm; the algorithm was designed especially for large number of transmit antennas, that allows efficient implementation in hardware—this is done by limiting the number of overall SD iterations; moreover, matrices with high condition number are more likely to undergo SD.