Driving assistance system and system and method for extending the limit of the defined operating range

Abstract

The present invention provides a driver assistance system, as well as a system and method for extending the limit of the permissible operating range (ODD). This system (10) comprises an ODD module (12) configured to receive a visibility parameter representing an actual visibility level of a sensor for an automated driving environment and to determine an ODD limit based on a comparison between the actual visibility level represented by the visibility parameter and a predetermined visibility level.This system further comprises an extension module (13) configured to monitor the actual visibility level represented by the visibility parameter and the predetermined visibility level; and extending at least a portion of the ODD limit when it is monitored that the actual visibility level increases to a value greater than or equal to the predetermined visibility level and / or the predetermined visibility level is configured lower, such that the actual visibility level is greater than or equal to the configured predetermined visibility level.

Description

FIELD OF THE INVENTIONThe present invention relates to a system and method for expanding the boundary of an allowable operating range. In addition, the present invention also relates to an allowable operating range comprising this system.PRIOR ARTThe term permissible operating range (ODD: operational design domain) originates from the standard SAE J3016. In this standard, the ODD is described as follows: The conditions under which a particular driving automation system or its functions are to function, including, but not limited to, environmental, geographic, and temporal constraints, as well as the presence or absence of particular traffic or road features. That is, the ODD is used to define under which operating conditions an automated driving function can be used, and when these operating conditions are no longer met, the functioning of the automated driving function is no longer guaranteed.However, at present, it is difficult in both science and practice to accurately describe ODDs in the existing field. Therefore, there is a problem that ODD descriptions are only vague at all times. For example, in the related art, the ODD may determine the departure from the lane keeping function in the event of rain, i.e., when it is raining, the environment is outside the ODD. However, for the current ODD, it is by no means specifically determined at which precipitation quantity the lane keeping function is to be left. In this way, once rain is detected, the system judges that the current scenario of automated driving is out of ODD, so that the system decides to end the lane keeping function.In the step L2 automated driving function, the vehicle is still relying on the control by the driver. If the system decides to end the automated driving function, this may not have too great an impact on the user experience. In the L3 level or higher automated driving function, in which it is largely allowed for the user to remove the hands from the steering wheel, remove the feet from the pedal, and turn the gaze, if the system frequently decides to end the automated driving function, a negative user experience may occur.DISCLOSURE OF THE INVENTIONIn view of this, one aspect of the present invention provides a system for expanding the limit of the allowable operating range (ODD). The system includes an ODD module configured to: receive a visibility parameter representing an actual level of visibility of the sensor in the automated driving environment; and determine an ODD based on a comparison between the actual level of visibility represented by the visibility parameter and a predetermined level of visibility, wherein the predetermined level of visibility is configurable. The system further comprises an extension module configured to: monitor the actual visibility level represented by the visibility parameter and the predetermined visibility level; and extend at least a portion of the ODD boundary when it is monitored that the actual visibility level increases to a value greater than or equal to the predetermined visibility level and / or the predetermined visibility level is configured lower such that the actual visibility level is greater than or equal to the configured predetermined visibility level.In one embodiment, the extended ODD limit serves to increase the availability of at least one automated driving function.In one embodiment, increasing availability of the at least one automated driving function comprises: decreasing the frequency of terminating the at least one automated driving function and / or increasing the duration of availability of this at least one automated driving function and / or propagating the scenarios in which this at least one automated driving function is activated.In one embodiment, the predetermined level of visibility refers to a minimum required level of visibility of the sensor by the at least one driving function.In one embodiment, the actual level of visibility is increased in one or more of the following ways:upgrading the sensor hardware;adding multiple vision or multimode sensors; andoptimizing the algorithms for sensor data processing.In one embodiment, the predetermined level of visibility is reduced in one or more of the following ways:the driver being operated or the automated vehicle control being manipulated results in the predefined visibility level being configured to be lower;reducing the minimum degree of visibility of sensors required by the at least one automated driving function by losses in the performance of the at least one driving function.In an embodiment, the extension module is further configured to: determine whether the current operating condition of the automated driving is inside or outside the extended ODD limit based on the extended ODD limit, thereby determining to enable, maintain, terminate, disable, or extend the at least one automated driving function.In one embodiment, the system further comprises a visibility module configured to generate the visibility parameters based on the sensor data from the sensors, wherein the visibility parameters comprise one or more parameters quantitatively describing the environment for the automated driving in one or more ways.In one embodiment, the ODD module is coupled to the visibility module and receives the visibility parameters coming from the visibility module; and the ODD module is decoupled from the detection module, which is connected to the at least one automated driving function or the automated driving environment truth system (ground truth) for the detection module.According to another aspect of the present invention, there is provided a driving assistance system for a vehicle, comprising an availability determination module that is to obtain the ODD boundary and determine the availability of at least one automated driving function based on the obtained ODD boundary. The ODD limit is an extended ODD limit set by the system (10) to extend the limit of the allowable operating range as described above.In one embodiment, the ODD boundary corresponds to the at least one automated driving function.In one embodiment, the driving assistance system also comprises the following: an automated driving function module, which is used to implement the at least one automated driving function.In an embodiment, the availability determination module is disposed in the ODD module or the automated driving function module or is configured as a module independent of the ODD module and the automated driving function module and may communicate with both.According to another aspect of the present invention, there is provided a method of expanding the boundary of an allowable operating range (ODD) executed by the above-described system, the method comprising: receiving a visibility parameter representing the actual visibility level of the sensors for the automated driving environment; determining an ODD boundary based on a comparison result between the actual visibility level represented by the visibility parameter and a predetermined visibility level, the predetermined visibility level being configurable; monitoring the actual visibility level represented by the visibility parameter and the predetermined visibility level; expanding at least a portion of the ODD boundary when the monitoring reveals that the actual visibility level increases to a value greater than or equal to the predetermined visibility level and / or the predetermined visibility level is configured lower such that the actual visibility level is greater than or equal to the configured predetermined visibility level.According to yet another aspect of the present invention, there is provided a machine readable storage medium having stored thereon executable instructions which, when executed, cause the method to be performed by processors.A summary overview of the key aspects of the present invention has been provided above to enable a basic understanding of these aspects. This summary survey is not intended to limit the scope of any single or entire aspect of the present invention. The purpose of this summary is to present some implementations of these aspects in simplified form as an introduction to the detailed description below.DESCRIPTION OF THE FIGURESThe technical solution of the present invention will be made clear in the following detailed description in conjunction with the figures. It is to be understood that the appended drawings are for illustrative purposes only and are not to be taken as limiting the scope of the present invention. FIG. 1 shows a schematic block diagram of a system for expanding the ODD boundary according to an embodiment of the present invention. FIG. 2 is a schematic illustration of the extension of the ODD boundary according to an embodiment of the present invention. FIG. 3 is a flow diagram of the method for expanding the ODD boundary according to an embodiment of the present invention.DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE EMBODIMENTSThe inventor found that in the present state of the art, there is a problem that the descriptions of the ODD boundary are not clear. In addition, it often occurs that a certain automated driving condition (application) directly leads to the completion of the automated driving function, which results in the problem that the availability of the automated driving function is greatly restricted only because a certain automated driving condition is outside the ODD limit.In this regard, embodiments of the present invention relate to a method and system for expanding the ODD boundary as well as an expanded boundary ODD.The system according to an embodiment of the present invention includes: a visibility module, an ODD module, and an extension module. The visibility module provides visibility information (e.g., visibility parameters including quantitative indicators). This visibility information serves as input to the ODD module, and is used to determine the ODD boundary. In addition, the extension module extends at least a portion of the determined ODD limit, thereby improving the usability of the ODD-monitored automated driving function.The ODD product according to the embodiment of the present invention can provide the user with a better automated driving experience because the user experiences the monitoring by the ODD after the limit is extended, that is, the user experiences the automated driving function with improved availability.According to an embodiment of the present invention, a strategy different from the strategy frequently used in the prior art based on the judgment of recognition by a ground truth system is employed, namely, the embodiments of the present invention utilize the monitoring of availability of the automated driving function based on the visibility. Therefore, the embodiments of the present invention do not rely on costly ground truth systems and need not know the specific accuracy of perception, they need only determine whether the current operating condition of automated driving has reached "skill" through a predetermined level of visibility (visibility parameter threshold) to achieve monitoring of the availability of the automated driving function.Note that in the embodiments of the present invention, automated driving includes assisted and automated driving. According to the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) definition, L1-L5are automated driving levels with different degrees of automation, with the low-level automated driving also often being referred to as assisted driving. Accordingly, in the embodiments of the present invention, the automated driving function includes various automated driving functions for realizing different degrees of automated driving.The specific embodiments of the present invention will be presented below in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.FIG. 1 shows a system 10 for expanding the ODD boundary according to an embodiment of the present invention (hereinafter referred to briefly as system 10), comprising: a vision module 11, an ODD module 12 and an expansion module 13. FIG. 1 also shows modules for automated driving, which include a recognition module 30 and an automated driving function module 40 (hereinafter referred to as AD function module 40 for short).The sensor 20 may include on-vehicle sensors and / or on-road sensors. The sensors may include, for example, one or more cameras, ultrasonic radar, millimeter wave radar, and radar. According to an embodiment of the present invention, sensor data refers to sensor data that includes information about the automated driving environment and is output by the sensor 20 when detecting the environment of the automated driving, for example, a video stream. It should be noted that the recognition module 30 and the visibility module 11 both receive sensor data, but that the recognition module 30 and the visibility module 11 are decoupled.The recognition module 30 understands the autonomous driving environment based on the sensor data, and thus obtains results of environment perception such as obstacle information or road information.The AD function module 40 performs the automated driving function based on the environment recognition result of the recognition module 30. The AD function module 40 may include a plurality of sub-modules for performing the automated driving function. These multiple sub-modules include, for example, a scheduling module, a arbitration module, and an execution module. It is understood that different automated driving functions may include different sub-modules.The visibility module 11 is used to describe the automated driving environment from the dimension of visibility. For example, the visibility module 11 generates visibility parameters based on the sensor data. The visibility parameter is used to quantitatively represent the visibility of the sensor 20 for the automated driving environment. The output terminal of the visibility module 11 is coupled to the input terminal of the ODD module 12, so that the visibility module 11 outputs the generated visibility parameters to the ODD module 12.The ODD module 12 determines the ODD boundary based on the visibility parameters received from the visibility module 11 and the visibility parameter threshold (see B 1 represented by the bold solid line in FIG. 2 ) Based on this boundary, it may be determined whether the current automated driving state is within the ODD boundary (i.e., IN ODD) or outside the ODD boundary (i.e., OUT ODD). If it is determined that the current automated driving state is within the ODD limit, the automated driving function is available, for example, the automated driving function is activated or maintained. If it is determined that the current state of the automated driving is outside the ODD limit, the corresponding automated driving function is not available, for example the automated driving function is not activated or it is left.According to embodiments of the present invention, the automated driving condition includes external elements and internal elements. The external elements may include dynamic elements and static elements. Dynamic elements include: for example object-related features such as speed and direction of movement of other vehicles in the environment of the vehicle. Static elements include: e.g., road-related features such as guardrails and road friction coefficients; weather-related features such as temperature, precipitation, and lighting; and traffic-related features such as traffic signs and traffic rules;The expansion module 13 is coupled to the ODD module 12 and the AD function module 40. The extension module 13 is used to extend at least a portion of the determined ODD boundary (see, e.g., the thin gray solid line in FIG. 2 showing the extended ODD boundary) and interact with the automated driving function module 40 based on the extended boundary. For example, it is judged based on the extended ODD boundary whether the current automated driving condition is inside the ODD boundary or outside the ODD boundary. In this way, the availability of the automated driving function (e.g., the available range of automated driving functions) may be improved, for example, automated driving conditions that originally fall within the range between the black thick solid line and the gray thin solid line are considered outside the ODD when bounded by the thick black line and within the ODD boundary when bounded by the extended thin line. As a result, some use cases originally located close to but outside the ODD boundary are now located within the ODD boundary, so that the availability of the automated driving function has been improved.It should be noted that the designation of the ODD module 12 and the extension module 13 is functional (logical) in nature and does not limit its specific embodiment or physical position in any way. They can be arranged in the same circuit or chip, but they can also be arranged in different circuits or chips. In addition, the ODD module 12 and the extension module 13 may be combined into one module, but may be divided into a plurality of sub-modules.In one embodiment, the ODD module 12 and the extension module 13 are located in the vehicle and the automated driving function module 40 is also located in the vehicle. In this way, the ODD limit extended by the extension module 13 acts on the automated driving function module 40, thereby improving the availability of the vehicle-side automated driving function.FIG. 3 illustrates a method 300 for expanding the ODD boundary according to an embodiment of the present invention. This method 300 can be carried out with the aid of the aforementioned system 10, so that the preceding description with respect to the system 10 also applies here.In block 302, the vision module 11 generates visibility parameters based on the sensor data. The visibility parameter is used to quantitatively represent the visibility of the sensor 20 for the environment of automated driving, that is, the actual degree of visibility of the sensor. This visibility parameter can be understood as a quantitative indicator that describes the automated driving environment from the perspective of visibility. The visibility module 11 may analyze and process the sensor data and obtain the visibility parameters. The present invention does not limit the specific implementation manner in which the visibility module 11 obtains the visibility parameters based on sensor data.The visibility parameter may include one or more visibility parameters used to quantitatively express the visibility from one or more aspects, i.e., to quantitatively describe the automated driving environment from one or more aspects. For example, the range of view of the sensors is described on the basis of the amount of precipitation, the light intensity and the fog density; or the range of view of the sensors is described on the basis of the combination of the two aspects of precipitation amount and visibility obstruction; or the range of view of the sensors is described on the basis of the combination of precipitation amount and anticipated duration of this amount of precipitation.In block 304, the ODD module 12 receives the visibility parameters from the visibility module 11 and determines the ODD boundary based on a comparison between the actual visibility level represented by the visibility parameters and the predetermined visibility level represented by the threshold of the visibility parameters.The visibility parameter threshold value stands for the predefined visibility level of the sensor 20.In particular, when the vision performance of the sensor 20 is very good, the sensor can very clearly "see" the automated driving environment. If the threshold value of the visibility parameter is set to the visibility degree in this situation, a large number of conditions for the automated driving will be out of the ODD, resulting in frequent termination of the automated driving function. If the vision of the sensor 20 is very poor, the sensor "sees" the automated driving environment very poorly. In such a situation, when the visibility parameter threshold is set based on the visibility degree, a large number of conditions for the automated driving fall within the ODD, which results in the function of the automated driving not being ended even if it cannot be normally executed. According to an embodiment of the present invention, the threshold value of the visibility parameter is set to a value between the above two situations, i.e., a value at which the sensor can see the environment of automated driving "view", which corresponds to the above-mentioned predetermined level of visibility, i.e., the minimum level required by the automated driving function for the level of visibility of the sensor is achieved.Note that the specific expression of the threshold value of the visibility parameter is different for visibility parameters that quantitatively describe the visibility in different ways. For example, if the visibility parameter is expressed as a visibility distance, for example, a visibility distance of 50 m, then the threshold value of the visibility parameter should be a certain value for the visibility distance, e.g., a threshold value for the visibility distance of 45 m.In the following, using the example of the precipitation amount and the visibility, an example will be described in which the ODD module 12 determines the ODD boundary based on the comparison result between the visibility parameter and the threshold value of the visibility parameter. In one embodiment, the visibility parameter is expressed as the sensor's visibility related to a precipitation amount and the corresponding visibility parameter threshold is expressed as the visibility threshold. The ODD module 12 determines: if the viewable distance under the current automated driving condition is greater than or equal to the viewable distance threshold, then the current automated driving condition is within the ODD boundary; conversely, if the viewable distance under the current automated driving condition is less than the viewable distance threshold, then the current automated driving condition is outside the ODD boundary. In this way, the ODD module 12 determines the ODD boundary. For example, for an automated driving condition condition: the visibility parameter is expressed as the sensor visibility of 50 m at a precipitation rate of 10 mm / hour, and the corresponding visibility parameter threshold is 40 m. The visibility of 50 m at these weather conditions is greater than the threshold for the visibility of 40 m. Consequently, these automated driving conditions are within the ODD limit.In block 306, the extension module 13 monitors the actual visibility represented by the visibility parameter as well as the predetermined visibility. In the case where it is monitored that the actual visibility level increases to a value greater than or equal to the predetermined visibility level and / or that the predetermined visibility level decreases to less than or equal to the actual visibility level, at least a part of the ODD boundary is extended and the increase in the availability of at least one automated driving function by the extended ODD boundary is increased.By extending the ODD boundary, the conditions for automated driving that were originally close to the ODD boundary but outside the ODD boundary may fall within the extended ODD boundary, thereby improving availability of the automated driving function. For example, the continuous operating time of the automated driving function is extended and / or the scenarios in which the automated driving function can be activated are extended and / or the scenarios in which the automated driving function is activated are extended.In summary, it can be said that the actual visibility level is brought to the predefined visibility level by increasing the actual visibility level and / or configuring the predefined visibility level lower.In one embodiment, the extension module 13 monitors the actual visibility level represented by the visibility parameters and the predetermined visibility level. In this embodiment, the actual visibility level is increased to be equal to or greater than the predetermined visibility level. Increasing the actual level of visibility may be achieved in one or more of the following ways: 1) upgrading the sensor hardware (e.g., replacing the sensor hardware with hardware with better performance than the original hardware. As another example, replacing the sensor with a larger field of view or higher resolution sensor); 2) adding different viewpoint or multi-mode sensors (e.g., adding sensors that collect information about the environment for automated driving from multiple viewpoints, or adding different type sensors to compensate for the inadequacy of a particular type of sensor in a particular environment); 3) optimizing the algorithms for sensor data processing (e.g., using improved algorithms for sensor data fusion or using repeatedly trained machine learning models, higher degree of visibility parameters are obtained).In another embodiment, the extension module 13 monitors the actual visibility level represented by the visibility parameters and the predetermined visibility level. In this embodiment, the set visibility level is configured lower to make the actual visibility level equal to or greater than the reconfigured predetermined visibility level. Scenarios that enable configuration of a lower scheduled level of visibility include one or more of the following:1) By means of operation by the driver or control by the control device for the automated driving, it is achieved that the defined degree of visibility can be configured to be lower (e.g. in the case of precipitation of more than 10 mm / hour, the visible distance as threshold value for the visibility parameter is 100 m, that is to say only if the visibility range is greater than or equal to 100 m, the automated driving function can be activated. However, when the driver actively decreases the speed at this time or the automated driving controller instructs to decrease the speed, the visibility range serving as the visibility parameter threshold value decreases from 100 m to 80 m. Thus, when the visibility range is 80 m or more, the automated driving function may be executed);2) By sacrificing some of the performance of the automated driving function to reduce the minimum sensor visibility required by the automated driving function (e.g., the effective lane detection distance is reduced from 100 m to 80 m, then the sensor visibility requirement is also reduced accordingly. For example, if the detection range of the front collision warning is decreased, the requirement for the range of view of the sensor is also decreased accordingly).In block 308, the augmentation module 13 uses the augmented ODD boundary to determine whether the current automated driving conditions are within or outside of this augmented ODD boundary, and thus decides to activate, maintain, terminate, not activate, or augment the automated driving function. An example of expanding the function of automated driving is: adding appropriate scenarios for the lane keeping function.According to an embodiment of the present invention, there is further provided a driving assistance system for a vehicle, including an availability determination module for detecting an ODD boundary and determining availability of at least one automated driving function according to the detected ODD boundary. The ODD boundary is an extended ODD boundary determined using a system for extending the boundary of the allowable operating range according to an embodiment of the present invention. This availability determination module may be implemented using the ODD module, for example, it may be arranged in the ODD module. This availability determination module can also be realized with the aid of the automated driving function module, for example arranged in an automated driving function module. The availability determination module may also be implemented as an ODD module independent module that may communicate with it and the automated driving function module (not shown) (not shown). In one specific embodiment, the driver assistance system also includes an automated driving function module.Note that the ODD limit corresponds to the automated driving function. In other words, the automated driving function corresponds to the ODD boundary judgment logic, wherein different automated driving functions may correspond to different ODD boundary judgments, for example, they include different judgment indicators such as the ODD boundary judgment indicator of the lane keeping function which is the accuracy of the sensor in recognizing lane lines, wherein the ODD boundary judgment indicator of the forward collision warning function is the accuracy of the sensor in recognizing objects in front of the vehicle.According to an embodiment of the present invention, there is further provided a machine readable storage medium having stored thereon executable instructions which, when executed, cause the aforementioned method 300 to be performed by one or more processors.It should be appreciated that the processor may be implemented using electronic hardware, computer software, or any combination thereof. Whether these processors are implemented in hardware or software depends on the specific application and the general design constraints imposed on the system. As an example, the processor, any portion of the processor, or any combination of the processor may be, within the scope of the present invention, a microprocessor, microcontroller, digital signal processor (DSP), field programmable gate array (FPGA), programmable logic device (PLD), state machine, gate logic, discrete hardware circuitry, and other suitable processing components configured to perform the various functions described in the present disclosure. The functions of the processor, any portion of the processor, or any combination of the processors provided by the present invention may be implemented as software executed by a microprocessor, microcontroller, DSP, or other suitable platforms.It is understood that software in the broadest sense means instructions, instruction sets, code, code segments, program code, program, subroutine, software module, application, software application, software package, routine, subroutine, object, running thread, process, function. The software may reside on a computer readable medium. A computer readable medium may include, for example, a memory. A memory may be, for example, a magnetic storage device (e.g., hard disk, floppy disk, and magnetic tape), an optical memory, a smart card, a flash memory, a random access memory (RAM), a read only memory (ROM), a programmable ROM (PROM), an erasable PROM (EPROM), an electrically erasable PROM (EEPROM), a register, or a removable medium. Although the memory is shown as separate from the processor in the several aspects of the present disclosure, the memory may also be located within the processor (e.g., cache or register).While some embodiments have been described above, these embodiments are only illustrative and are not intended to limit the scope of the present invention. The appended claims and their equivalents are intended to cover all modifications, substitutions and alterations made herein within the scope and spirit of the present invention.

Claims

A system (10) for expanding the boundary of the allowable operating range (ODD), comprising: an ODD module (12) configured to: receive a visibility parameter representing an actual visibility level of a sensor for an automated driving environment; and determine an ODD boundary based on a comparison between the actual visibility level represented by the visibility parameter and a predetermined visibility level, wherein the predetermined visibility level is configurable; and an expansion module (13) configured to: monitor the actual visibility level represented by the visibility parameter and the predetermined visibility level; expanding at least a portion of the ODD boundary when monitoring that the actual visibility level increases to a value greater than or equal to the predetermined visibility level and / or configuring the predetermined visibility level lower such that the actual visibility level is greater than or equal to the configured predetermined visibility level.The system (10) of claim 1, wherein the extended ODD limit is to increase availability of at least one function of automated driving.The system (10) of claim 2, wherein increasing availability of the at least one automated driving function comprises: decreasing the frequency of exiting the at least one automated driving function and / or increasing the duration of availability of the at least one automated driving function and / or propagating scenarios in which that at least one automated driving function is activated.The system (10) of any of claims 1 to 3, wherein the predetermined level of visibility refers to a minimum level for the level of visibility of the sensor required by the at least one driving function.The system (10) of any of claims 1 to 4, wherein the actual visibility level is improved in one or more of the following ways: - hardware upgrade of the sensor; - addition of multiple vision or multimodal sensors; and - optimizing the algorithm of sensor data processing.The system (10) of any of claims 1 to 5, wherein the predetermined level of visibility is reduced in one or more of the following ways: - actuating the driver or manipulating the automated vehicle controller results in the predetermined level of visibility being configured lower; - reducing the minimum level of visibility of sensors required by the at least one automated driving function by sacrificing performance of the at least one driving function.The system (10) of any of claims 1 to 6, wherein the extension module is further configured to: determine whether the current operating condition of the automated driving is within or outside the extended ODD limit based on the extended ODD limit, thereby determining to enable, maintain, terminate, disable, or extend the at least one automated driving function.The system (10) according to any one of claims 1 to 7, further comprising a visibility module (11) configured to generate the visibility parameters from the sensor data from the sensors, the visibility parameters comprising one or more parameters quantitatively describing the environment for automated driving in one or more ways.The system (10) of claim 8, wherein the ODD module is coupled to the visibility module and receives the visibility parameters coming from the visibility module; and the ODD module is decoupled from the one of the at least one automated driving function and one of the automated driving ground truth system.A driving assistance system for a vehicle, comprising: an availability determination module that is to detect the ODD boundary and determine availability of at least one automated driving function based on the detected ODD boundary; wherein the ODD boundary is an extended ODD boundary determined by a system (10) for expanding the boundary of the specified operating range according to any one of claims 1 to 9.The driving assistance system according to claim 10, wherein the ODD boundary corresponds to the at least one automated driving function.The driving assistance system according to claim 10, further comprising: an automated driving function module (40) for implementing the at least one automated driving function.The driving assistance system according to claim 12, wherein the availability determination module is disposed in the ODD module or the automated driving function module (40), or is configured as a module independent of the ODD module and the automated driving function module and can communicate with both.A method for expanding the boundary of the allowable operating range (ODD) executed by a system according to any one of claims 1 to 9, comprising: receiving a visibility parameter representing the actual level of visibility of the sensors in the automated driving environment; determining an ODD boundary based on a comparison between an actual level of visibility represented by the visibility parameter and a predetermined level of visibility, wherein the predetermined level of visibility is configurable; monitoring the actual level of visibility represented by the visibility parameter and the predetermined level of visibility; expanding at least a portion of the ODD boundary when monitoring that the actual visibility level increases to a value greater than or equal to the predetermined visibility level and / or configuring the predetermined visibility level lower such that the actual visibility level is greater than or equal to the configured predetermined visibility level.A machine readable storage medium having stored thereon executable instructions which, when executed, cause the processors to perform the method of claim 14.

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