Apparatus and method for generating boundaries of satellite coverage beams

A method of claim 5, wherein the identifying further comprises:

• calculating, for each beam point, a distance and angle from the centroid;
• determining a beam outline based on beam points furthest from the centroid;
• and
• selecting MDPs as beam points furthest away from the centroid and not approximately 180° apart from another beam point which forms part of the beam outline.

An apparatus comprising:

• a processor configured to:
• select a plurality of beam points, from a set of points on a coordinate system, to be included within a beam definition;
• determine a number of ellipses capable of enclosing the selected beam points while excluding at least some of the remaining points from the set of points;
• assign the selected beam points to a corresponding ellipse;
• optimize geometric information for each ellipse to enclose the selected beam points assigned thereto;
• and
• define a coverage beam based on a contour resulting from a combined shape of all the ellipses using the optimized geometric information.