The working face is one of the main scenes of coal production. Common working face monitoring methods include three-machine displacement sensor, shearer inertial navigation system and working face video monitoring system. In order to improve the monitoring accuracy and characterize the shape of the working face in multiple dimensions, a monitoring idea of the working face based on the distributed lidar scanning technology of the working face is proposed. By analyzing the core requirements of the scene monitoring of the mining face, combined with the characteristics and advantages of the 3D point cloud modeling technology, the typical application scenarios of the distributed lidar system in the monitoring of the mining face are given, including : real-time monitoring of the spatial model of the mining face based on the point cloud dynamic splicing technology ; statistics of mining footage based on accurate measurement of point cloud ; three-machine pose detection and flatness management of working face based on point cloud feature identification. The research results show that the monitoring idea of the mining face based on the distributed lidar scanning technology is technically feasible and can provide a new means for the monitoring operation of the mining face.