The invention discloses a portable vehicle recognition device base on an embedded platform, belonging to the technical field of traffic and vehicle management. A camera, a display or a touch screen, a wireless transmission (GPRS) module, a radio frequency identification card (RFID) reader, a global positioning (GPS) module are arranged on the embedded platform to form a portable device which integrates set data acquisition, data display, data processing, self location, data transmission and communication function as a whole, so that the recognition of licence plate images comprising five key links, such as image acquisition, image preprocessing, licence plate location, character segmentation and character recognition is realized, and the image acquisition and processing are directly completed in the portable device. The device has the advantages of convenient carrying, rapid location, high flexibility, high efficiency, high accuracy, high reliability, low cost and high quality, and is recommended to be used in the field of traffic and vehicle management.