Abstract: An apparatus for capturing surroundings of a vehicle, which includes an illumination unit for emitting light pulses into surroundings, an optical capture unit for detecting the surroundings, an evaluation unit for evaluating a detection signal recorded by the optical capture unit. The illumination unit is designed such that at least two light pulses are periodically emitted, luminous areas of the light pulses having light patterns designed to be complementary to each other. The optical capture unit being controlled such that it captures an illumination area illuminated by the light pulses as a detection image synchronously with the emission of the light pulses.

Abstract: An apparatus for identifying a weather condition in surroundings of a vehicle, which includes an illuminating unit for illuminating the surroundings, a control unit for controlling the illuminating unit, an image capturing unit for capturing image information of the surroundings, an evaluation unit for evaluating the image information, image data provided by the image capturing unit being compared with predefined reference image data, each characterizing different weather conditions, and a weather condition signal being generated, depending on a match of the comparison, the control unit including a pulse modulation device, with the aid of which the illuminating unit is controlled in such a way that the illuminating unit emits pulsed light signals