In order to improve the efficiency of target detection in LIDAR 3D range Image,it is proposed a target detection method based on lidar 3D range image.This method firstly restrain the noise for range image within abnormal distance detection algorithm in the neighborhood pixels,then the morphological ground estimation and height segmentation algorithm is used to complete the ground object segmentation of range image,finally according to the size characteristics of the interesting target,it gets the interesting target fleetly by Minimum Area Bounding Rectangle estimation algorithm.It makes full use of height information and prior information known to the target,the efficiency of target detection is unacted on variation of light intensity for 2D image,computing speed is unacted on processing 3D massive point cloud data.The results show the method is suitable for rapid ground target detection in the complex and varied battlefield environment.