The invention relates to a method for determining an occupancy status of a parking bay, wherein a vehicle is moved along a street segment with at least one parking bay and the vehicle has a distance sensor as well as a sensor for satellite-based location and time determination. Furthermore, static parking information on the position of the parking bays in a street segment and parking information on the parking bays are on hand. By means of distance and location data projected distance data are produced which each indicate a distance datum of the distance sensor to the next object in the sensor direction at a point of the street of the street segment at the parking bay. By means of these projected distance data a standard distance is ascertained. Subsequently, for each point of a parking bay the determination is made if this is unoccupied by comparing the distance datum with the standard distance plus a delta. An area of a parking bay is determined as one or several vacant parking spaces if the rounded-down quotient of the length of the adjoining contiguous unoccupied points to the length of an average parking space is 1 or greater.

A method for classifying objects in the environment of a vehicle with the aid of ultrasonic sensors. In the method, ultrasonic signals are emitted, ultrasonic echoes are received from objects in the environment, and the position of a reflection point relative to the ultrasonic sensors is determined using lateration, reflection points being continuously determined and the reflection points being allocated to objects in the environment. Dispersion parameters relating to the position of the reflection points allocated to an object are determined and used as a classification criterion with regard to the type of object. A driver assistance system and a vehicle including such a driver assistance system, are also described.

The invention relates to a method for monitoring a surrounding area (6) of a motor vehicle (1), wherein measurement points of surfaces of objects (7) in the surrounding area (6) detected by at least two sensor devices (4, 5) of the motor vehicle (1) are received, and wherein first measurement points of a first surface area (13) detected by a first sensor device (4) are received and second measurement points of a second surface area (14) with no overlap with the first surface area (13) detected by a second sensor device (5) are received, the first and second measurement points are used to determine a relative position of the surface areas (13, 14) with respect to each other, it is determined whether the surface areas (13, 14) are to be assigned to a single object (7) based on the relative position and, if so, the surface areas (13, 14) are combined into a total surface area (12) of the object (7). The invention also concerns a sensor control unit (9), a driver assistance system (2) and a motor vehicle (1).

Technologies and techniques for providing assistance to a motor vehicle during a process of exiting a lateral parking space. A device is configured with at least one surroundings sensor system and at least one control unit with an assigned memory to acquire successive values of distances from adjacent motor vehicles during a parking process and to store them in a map of the surroundings. The device may be designed in such a way that, before the start of the process of exiting a parking space, current values of distances from the adjacent motor vehicles are acquired and compared with the distance values stored in the map of the surroundings, wherein, when they correspond, a parking-space-exiting trajectory is made available by means of the map of the surroundings.

A method for recognizing a parking space for a vehicle and a parking assistance system are disclosed. An obstacle is identified from successive image frames captured when the vehicle is moving and a first boundary for the obstacle is generated by a Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) algorithm based on a position of the obstacle shown in each of the successive image frames. Distances between the moving vehicle and the obstacle are detected by ultrasonic sensors. A second boundary for the obstacle is generated by a distance modification module based on the distances between the vehicle and the obstacle. A periphery of the obstacle is defined by a periphery definition module. In view of the periphery of the obstacle, a parking space is thus recognized by a parking space recognition module. The parking process can be changed to a self-drive mode, and remotely controlled by a mobile device.

A method for correcting a position of a vehicle when parking in a parking space. The method includes determining the position of the vehicle on the basis of odometry information, sensing ultrasonic signals from a linear object, carrying out a method for simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) on the basis of the linear object and the ultrasonic signals, and correcting the position of the vehicle A control device for a driving support system of a vehicle is also disclosed, which is designed to receive odometry information of the vehicle, to receive ultrasonic signals from at least one ultrasonic sensor of the driving support system, and to carry out the aforementioned method. A driving support system for a vehicle with an aforementioned control device and with at least one ultrasonic sensor is disclosed. The invention likewise relates to a vehicle with an aforementioned driving support system.

A method for aiding finding of available parking areas of a street section includes receiving data corresponding to parking areas situated in a street section, the data including information ascertained by an ascertaining vehicle driving through the street section and information received from a server, determining an instantaneous occupancy estimate of the street section based on the received data, calculating a forecasted occupancy estimate based on the instantaneous occupancy estimate using a timer series forecasting model, and generating a display representation of the calculated forecasted occupancy estimate. The method includes receiving the data and determining the occupancy estimate, for example, each time an ascertaining vehicle drives through the street.

The invention relates to a method for identifying at least one object (9, 10) in a surrounding area (7) of a motor vehicle (1), in which the motor vehicle (1) is moved relative to at least one object (9, 10) and, while the motor vehicle (1) is moved relative to the at least one object (9, 10), a measurement cycle is performed at each of a plurality of successive times, wherein each measurement cycle involves an ultrasonic sensor (4) of the motor vehicle (1) being used to transmit an ultrasonic signal, and a feature (14) being determined that describes a position value, which describes a position of the at least one object (9, 10) and which is ascertained on the basis of a first received echo of the ultrasonic signal, and a presence of a second echo of the ultrasonic signal that is received within a predetermined period of time after the first echo, wherein the respective features (14) are associated with a cluster (13) on the basis of their position value, and the features (14) of the cluster (13) are signalled as belonging to the at least one object (9, 10) on the basis of the presence of the second echo.

A method, a device and a computer-readable storage medium with instructions for processing data in a motor vehicle for forwarding to a back end. In a first step, sensor data are detected along a route of the motor vehicle. On the basis of the sensor data, features and context information on the features are then identified within segments of the route. Finally, the features and the context information on the features are combined into a message for the route.

In a driver assistance method for a vehicle, to identify moving objects on the side and to avoid unnecessary collision warnings, the method includes: a) detecting an object with the aid of a first sensor; b) detecting the object with the aid of a second sensor; c) checking whether the object has left the detection area of the second sensor; and d1) discarding the distance data measured by the first sensor and the second sensor if the object has left the detection area of the second sensor; or d2) determining the position of the object from measured distance data if the object has not left the detection area of the second sensor.