A method for detecting an object within a surrounding area of a vehicle, includes: repeatedly transmitting wave pulses into the surrounding area; repeatedly receiving wave pulses, which correspond to the transmitted wave pulses reflected by the objects; detecting the object with the aid of a signal representation of the received wave pulses, and ascertaining at least one signal characteristic of a first received wave pulse. The detecting of the object includes: comparing the curve in the form of the signal characteristic of the first received wave pulse to the curve of a further received wave pulse, which was received after the first received wave pulse, location information of the object being corrected in light of the comparison.