The invention discloses a robot for detecting the corrosion of a base plate of an on-service large-sized crude oil storage tank, belonging to the technical field of corrosion detection of storage tanks. The robot comprises an umbilical cable, a rudder balance, a submerging-surfacing adjusting bin, a navigation system, a propeller, a control bin, imaging sonar, a bases bracket, an ultrasonic detection device, an operation platform, a display system and an umbilical cable winch. Before the detection, an internal structure of a storage tank is scanned and reconstituted by the imaging sonar, a plurality of sampling detection points are selected, a walking route of the robot is planed, the robot is put down and is controlled to walk to an appointed working position, and obstacles are avoided byvirtue of the imaging sonar in the moving process. In the detection process, the ultrasonic detection device expands and stretches to be in contact with the base plate at the tank so as to acquire corrosion defect information, after a current detection point is detected, the ultrasonic detection device is withdrawn and is moved to the next working position, so repeatedly, the robot is withdrawn after all sampling points are detected. According to the robot, the detection problems in the crude oil storage tank with complex barriers are solved; and the robot is high in isolation explosive-proofgrades and strong in adaptive capacity.