Objectives  The spatial position of carrier-based aircraft on the deck is required before take-off. Visual measurement is a high-precision and high-efficiency automated measurement method.

  Methods  Therefore, a spatial positioning scheme for the carrier-based aircraft based on visual measurement is proposed in this paper. Firstly, the "Visual Measurement System-Deck Plane" relative position calibration method is introduced; secondly, based on the collinear relationship of "Visual Measurement Camera-Imaging Center-Fuselage Cooperation Logo", the position of the cooperation logo relative to the visual measurement system is calculated; finally, on this basis, the fuselage fixed cooperation logo is identified as a position transfer relay station to obtain the non-visual environment "Visual Measurement System-Airborne Inertial Navigation" transfer measurement model.

  Results  The results of the visual measurement experiments show that the target spatial positioning result based on visual measurement is better than 0.3 m.

  Conclusion  This scheme is expected to enable more carrier-based aircraft sorties to obtain spatial positioning information with higher precision before take-off.