The invention provides a 3D spectrum sharing method and device for a cognitive unmanned aerial vehicle network, and relates to the technical field of wireless communication. A three-dimensional composite space-time spectrum sensing model is constructed based on a sight distance probability model and the flexibility of the positions of unmanned aerial vehicles, the non-interference transmission probability between the unmanned aerial vehicles is deduced, and the throughput which can be obtained by the downlink of the cognitive unmanned aerial vehicle network is obtained, and then a cognitive unmanned aerial vehicle network throughput optimization model is formulated, and the downlink throughput is maximized by jointly optimizing the sensing time, transmission power and flight height of the unmanned aerial vehicle. According to the method, through joint optimization of the unmanned aerial vehicle sensing time, the unmanned aerial vehicle transmission power and the unmanned aerial vehicle flight height, the downlink throughput of the cognitive unmanned aerial vehicle network is maximized, idle spectrum resources of a ground base station are effectively utilized, and the spectrum utilization rate and the throughput are further improved.