A method for detecting a discovery reference signal includes: acquiring, by a user equipment, configuration information of a discovery reference signal, where the configuration information includes time-frequency resource information and sequence information of the discovery reference signal; receiving, by the user equipment, a first discovery reference signal sent by a base station; and determining a candidate time-frequency resource location of the discovery reference signal according to the time-frequency resource information, determining a candidate sequence of the discovery reference signal according to the sequence information, and, by detecting the candidate sequence of the discovery reference signal at the candidate time-frequency resource location, determining an actual time-frequency resource location of the first discovery reference signal and/or determining an actual sequence of the first discovery reference signal.