The invention discloses a target identification device and method based on ghost imaging calculation. The device is formed by a mode-locked laser, a laser beam expander, a diaphragm, a high-speed spatial light modulator, an imaging lens, a high-speed photodiode, a digital acquisition module and the like. The method comprises the steps of utilizing a random speckle generated by the high-speed spatial light modulator for sampling a target to be identified, adopting the ghost imaging calculation for rebuilding the target, and realizing target identification under extra-low sampling ratio through nonlinear correlation. According to the target identification device and the method based on the ghost imaging calculation provided by the invention, an information acquisition method of the ghost imaging calculation is adopted, and a nonlinear correlation test is combined, so that not only is target identification with single pixel and low sampling ratio realized and is the spectral region of target identification expanded, but also the size of a detector is reduced, and the cost of an imaging system is reduced.