Generating Scan Patterns Using Cognitive Lidar

A lidar system comprising:

• a light source configured to emit light pulses;
• a scanner configured to scan a field of regard (FOR) of the lidar system including direct the light pulses at different angles toward different points within the FOR;
• and
• a controller configured to drive the scanner to direct the light pulses across the field of regard, including:
• obtain a plurality of objective functions, each of the objective functions specifying a cost for a respective property of the scan pattern, expressed in terms of one or more operational parameters of the scanner,
• apply an optimization scheme to the plurality of objective functions to generate the scan pattern, and
• scan the FOR according to the generated scan pattern.