Abstract: There are many shadows in moving target detection area which obtained by background subtraction based on Gaussian mixture model. Criterion of detecting shadow and judgment of Phong illumination model was improved, and a video moving object detection algorithm was presented. Combining the background subtraction and symmetry subtraction on Gaussian mixture model to get moving object, and using improved algorithm to remove shadow. The results showed that the improved standards reduce the average deal time by 18% to 30% and still obtain better results of removal shadow, and finally gain the precise motion target.