Abstract: A system and method characterizes the height of targets in an environment around a vehicle. Signals are transmitted into the environment and return signals are received to determine a track corresponding to a target. For each track, bins are generated, each bin corresponding to a segment of the range, the segments having a gradually increasing size between the minimum range and maximum range. Range and magnitude values of the received return signals are determined for a selected track. A plurality of filled bins are determined, filled bins indicating that a return signal within the selected track has a range value falling within the segment corresponding to said bin. When the number of filled bins exceeds a set threshold, the return signals having range values within the segments corresponding to the filled bins are analyzed to characterize a height of the target.