The vehicles will use digital cameras, radar and sonar, married with sophisticated home-grown software, to pick and ping their way through the desert.

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Like its cousins radar and sonar, lidar (light detection and ranging), works by broadcasting electromagnetic waves towards a target and then building up a picture from the reflection.

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Down the road from UCSD, 30-foot screens at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography project geomorphic data obtained from radar, sonar and satellites, combined into a single 3-D image.

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The move gives the French group control of a raft of businesses from radar and sonar, to internet services, as well as Racal's 22% stake in the UK's National Lottery operator Camelot.

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These provide readings on location, charting, weather, sonar and radar via a proprietary Ethernet-based network.

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