A solar panel recognition method based on YOLOv3 deep learning algorithm is proposed to address issues such as inaccurate recognition of traditional algorithms in space solar panel detection. First, this paper scales the dataset images to 416 × 416, then uses Labelme to annotate the data and transform the bounding box position information, and finally uses the YOLOv3 algorithm framework for model training. The results show that the recall, F1 score and accuracy of YOLOv3 algorithm are all above 80%. The YOLOv3 deep learning algorithm meets the requirements for real-time detection of solar panels in terms of accuracy. © 2024 IEEE.