The invention belongs to the technical field of image exposure, and relates to an automatic exposure control method. The automatic exposure control method comprises the steps of S1, carrying out imagecollected by using binocular vision and an active structural light source projection method, and obtaining the last image collected each time; S2, obtaining the average brightness of the image by using a dynamic partitioning and dynamic weight coefficient adjusting method; S3, judging whether the average brightness of the image is within a target brightness range or not, if so, not carrying out exposure compensation and terminating the automatic exposure control, otherwise, entering the step S4; and S4, obtaining the difference between the average brightness of the image and the target brightness, selecting the corresponding step size for exposure compensation according to the difference and returning back to the step S1. The automatic exposure control method soles the problems of great noise signal, insufficient or excessive exposure of a target area due to excessive contrast between the target object and the background, excessively long adjustment time and excessively great difference between the image brightness and the target brightness in the prior art.