[bigger_cheese]

I work at an industrial plant we use microwave radar based imaging can get quite detailed surface profiles in very poor conditions including inside reactors etc where dust is big issue. I'm not expert in this field I think systems used are continuous wave based.

For vehicle applications specifically probably worth looking into what they use on autonomous vehicles at mine sites imagine that tech probably useful in agriculture. For example Pilbara here in Australia large autonomous fleets in very dusty conditions.

[vsskanth]

Hi, I've previously been to a company that makes the hardware for autonomous mining vehicles. They rely mainly on DGPS systems for positioning and a combination of simple camera vision and radar for obstacle detection. Keep in mind they don't drive that fast (around 25 mph), are supposed to be in clear unobstructed (unless they're in a queue to load or unload) and just stop when they detect a vehicle or a person.