In order to realize intelligent video surveillance of substation, this paper presents a substation robot working state monitoring system based on video surveillance. In this paper, the intelligent monitoring system of substation robot working state is constructed by combining virtual reality technology. Through the cooperation of each unit in the system, the real-time monitoring of substation robot working state and the early warning of abnormal working state are realized. The system can transmit video data at a high frame rate to ensure the timeliness of video data transmission and clearly and smoothly present the virtual scene of substation robot work. It can realize the high-precision positioning measurement of the robot under different distances and speeds, obtain the working dynamic trajectory of the robot according to the measurement results, analyze its working state, and give an early warning in case of abnormal working state, so as to achieve the purpose of intelligently monitoring the working state of the substation robot. The experimental results show that each group of video data transmission frame rate of the system can reach 29 f/s and is relatively stable. The average transmission frame rate is 30.62 f/s. The video transmission frame rate is high, which can ensure the timeliness of video transmission. Conclusion. The designed substation intelligent video monitoring system has good output stability and reliability.