Method to provide a vehicle environment contour polyline from detection data

A method of generating a polyline representing a contour of one or more objects of a vehicle environment, said polyline comprising a series of one or more segments of straight lines, said method comprising:

• a) formulating a series of spatially ordered points (P) in 2-dimensional space, each representing a point detection with respect to one or more object in said environment determined by a vehicle on-board detection system;
• b) connecting the end points (PE1, PE2) of said series of ordered points with a first straight line segment, and determining the shortest distance (D) between each of the intermediate points and the first straight line segment;
• c) determining from step b) a threshold (Dthr) based on a measure of the dispersion of the intermediate points around said first straight line segment;
• d) for each side of said first straight line segment determining, for any points that lie on that respective side, the point which is further from said first straight line segment;
• e) determining any of the points found in step d) which are further from the first straight line segment than said threshold (P1/P2);
• f) formulating a polyline comprising plurality of straight line segments connecting the end points via any of said points determined from step e).