The invention provides a cable positioning method for a live working robot in a complex environment, and the method comprises the steps: judging and analyzing the complexity of an environment if the space attitude information of a target working point cannot be obtained; if the environment is a complex environment, manually selecting two laser endpoints A and B on the cable through a laser transmitter; wherein the center points of the two endpoints in the step (4) are target operation points C, and according to the space coordinates of the points C and the space vectors described by the pointsA and B, acquiring the space attitude information of the target operation points. An optical filter is installed on a binocular camera to complete cable identification, if the initial identificationfails, judging the illumination environment and the texture complexity, when the binocular camera is in a non-complex environment, performing manual auxiliary positioning and enabling an operator to determine the target position by using a return image; and if the cable is in a complex environment, forming a bright spot on the cable by using a laser emitter with the same wavelength as the opticalfilter, and finishing positioning of the cable by processing the bright spot.