The invention relates to an expressway vehicle detection method based on improved visual background extraction, which comprises the steps of 1, initializing a read-in image, wherein an input color image is converted into a grayscale image; 2, carrying out background molding on the image, carrying out background initialization if the image is a first frame image, and otherwise, carrying out background updating so as segment out the background; 3, segmenting out a road surface from the foreground; 4, carrying out eight-neighborhood filling on the image; 5, removing a lane line by using a characteristic that the lane line is narrow; 6, filling the internal part of a vehicle by using a longitudinal filing method; and 7, extracting a vehicle area and drawing an external rectangular frame of the vehicle area. According to the invention, vehicles on the expressway in aerial video of an unmanned aerial vehicle are detected by adopting a mode of image processing, the cost is low, the detection precision is high, the real-time performance is good, and the application range is wide.