The invention discloses a behavior identification method for a rank-1 tensor projection based on canonical return. The method disclosed by the invention comprises the following steps: (1) the training course: two two-class classifiers are respectively trained for each behavior by adopting a One Vs All strategy; a projection vector set comprising three projection vectors is solved by utilizing a canonical return method; the rank-1 tensor projection is obtained through the exterior product of the projection vector set; the training behavior with the known class is divided into multiple subsets according to the types; the embedding of the subsets is established; and (2) the identification course: testing data are input to each two-class classifier; the output responses of all the two-class classifiers form a row vector; the row vector is multiplied by the embedding result of each one-dimensional subset to obtain the maximum row vector of the multiplying result; and the positive sample class represented by the two-class classifiers corresponding to the maximum row vector is the class judged by a testing behavior. In the method disclosed by the invention, the behavior identification rate is high; and the computing complexity of the method can be greatly reduced.