In response to the actual needs of regular maintenance and maintenance of underwater pipe networks, a set of underwater pipeline network visual inspection system is designed. A pipeline tracking method is proposed according to the characteristics of underwater optical images and the characteristics of pipe network laying. The method uses adaptive histogram equalization to convert the unevenly illuminated underwater image into a uniform light image, and combines the color space transformation method to enhance the image and complete the pipeline region segmentation. The pattern recognition method of the support vector machine is used to classify the pipeline image according to the underwater robot tracking strategy, and the pipeline extraction strategy is established according to the classification characteristics of each pipeline. Finally, Kalman filtering is used to track pipelines to ensure system stability. The pipeline tracking detection experiment was carried out in the experimental pool, and the correct rate of pipeline network path identification reached 93. 7%, which verified the effectiveness and stability of the visual inspection system and can meet the actual needs of underwater pipeline network inspection.