LIDAR which plays a very important role in the cloud observation is one of the main instruments of cloud remote sensing. At present, most LIDAR is pointed vertically or to a certain angle. In this mode, sampling of cloud distribution is limited. A scanning LIDAR for cloud observation is constructed, in which a small solid-state laser is bearded on the receiving telescope. The telescope is fixed to the 3D scanning platform, so the whole system can work in different scanning modes in order to realize the monitoring of the whole sky clouds. Then the scanning LIDAR is used to the observation of cloud，and the result is compared with the existing RRML. The cloud measurement result shows that the scanning LIDAR can describe the distribution of the height and the optical depth with high spatial resolution, which reflects the advantage of scanning LIDAR in cloud detection.