Provision of an efficient environmental map for a vehicle

A device for providing an environmental map of a vehicle, wherein

• the environmental map represents a section of an environment and includes cells which are each assigned to a subsection of the environment of the vehicle,
• each cell is assigned occupancy information based on a probability of a presence of an object in the subsection assigned to the respective cell, the device comprising:
• at least two driver assistance systems, each driver assistance system being configured to adopt an active and an inactive state and which, in the active state, a first of the two driver assistance systems requires occupancy information concerning a first section of the environment and a second of the two driver assistance systems requires occupancy information concerning a second section of the environment, wherein the first and second sections at least do not overlap completely,
• an electronic processing unit configured to interface with a sensor system, wherein the electronic processing unit executes a program to:
• determine a respective driver assistance system or systems which are in the active state;
• and
• determine the section of the environment which the environmental map is to be configured to represent based on the first and second sections about which the driver assistance systems require occupancy information in the active state,
• configure the environmental map for the determined section of the environment to comprise only the first and second sections about which the driver assistance systems require occupancy information in the active state, whereby the section of the environment is not limited to permanently predefined geometric shapes,
• so that sections of the environment not considered by the driver assistance systems do not consume any storage and processing resources, and
• the at least two driver assistance systems are selected from the group consisting of a front collision warning system, a rear collision warning system, an active parking assistance system, a lane keeping assistance system, and a side view assistance system.

A non-transitory computer readable medium having stored thereon program code sections which, when executed, carry out a method for providing an environmental map for a vehicle, wherein

• the environmental map represents a section of an environment and includes cells which are each assigned to a subsection of the environment of the vehicle,
• each cell is assigned occupancy information based on a probability of a presence of an object or part thereof in the subsection assigned to the respective cell, and
• the vehicle is equipped with a group of at least two driver assistance systems, each driver assistance system being configured to adopt an active and an inactive state and which, in the active state, a first of the two driver assistance systems requires occupancy information concerning a first section of the environment and a second of the two driver assistance systems requires occupancy information concerning a second section of the environment, wherein the first and second sections at least do not overlap completely,
• the method executed by the program code sections comprising the acts of:
• determining a respective driver assistance system or systems which are in the active state;
• and
• determining the section of the environment which the environmental map is to be configured to represent based on the first and second sections about which the driver assistance systems require occupancy information in the active state,
• configuring the environmental map for the determined section of the environment to comprise only the first and second sections about which the driver assistance systems require occupancy information in the active state, whereby the section of the environment is not limited to permanently predefined geometric shapes,
• so that sections of the environment not considered by the driver assistance systems do not consume any storage and processing resources, and
• the at least two driver assistance systems are selected from the group consisting of a front collision warning system, a rear collision warning system, an active parking assistance system, a lane keeping assistance system, and a side view assistance system.