The invention discloses a welding seam recognition device and recognition method suitable for flat plate butt welding seams, the welding seam recognition device comprises a sliding device and an adjusting device, the end of the sliding device is provided with a driving device, the rear side face of the sliding device is provided with a fixing device, and the top of the sliding device is provided with a horizontal regulator and an industrial personal computer. A fixing device is arranged at the end of the adjusting device and used for fixing an industrial camera and a laser pen which are used for recognition. According to the recognition method, aiming at the limitation that segmentation of a current FCM clustering algorithm is easy to fall into local optimum, the FCM clustering algorithm is optimized by searching a clustering center in combination with a mucous flora intelligent algorithm, so that the image quality is obviously improved, and details and contours of an image edge region are clear. The method can be suitable for flat plates with different weld lengths and is high in adaptability; the field installation is rapid, the stability of device operation during identification is good, the identification method is high in identification speed, good in reliability and robustness and high in precision, and the welding seam identification efficiency of a construction site is greatly improved.