Rotor safety system

Piloted or autonomous rotorcraft includes a rotor safety system. The rotor safety system comprises a lidar scanner toward a rotor of the rotorcraft, e.g., the tail rotor, that scans the 3D space in the vicinity of the rotor. Objects in the vicinity of the rotor are detected from the lidar point data. In a piloted rotorcraft, predictive warnings can be provided to the helicopter's flight crew when a detected object presents a hazard to the rotor of the rotorcraft.