Diesel monorail crane is one of the main equipment used for the transportation of equipment, personnel and materials in coal mine roadway. It has the advantages of large transportation capacity, strong adaptability of roadway, long continuous transportation distance, etc., which can greatly improve the underground transportation efficiency of coal mines, and reasonable braking control strategy is the fundamental guarantee of safe and efficient operation for monorail cranes. Therefore, a braking control strategy using visual perception is proposed to improve the braking safety and stability for monorail cranes. Firstly, a detection and recognition scheme of pedestrian obstacles in front of monorail cranes is constructed by binocular cameras, and the obstacle recognition and real-time distance measurement are realized with the help of visual detection and stereo matching algorithm. Secondly, with the real time obtained pedestrian obstacle distance information, the current running speed information and the load condition of monorail cranes, the overall braking control strategy for monorail cranes under different working conditions is designed with consideration of the braking stopping distance and braking deceleration requirements. Then, taking the uncertain disturbance during the running process into account, a real-time tracking control strategy of pump-controlled-motor system for monorail cranes is constructed using the disturbance observer and robust reverse step control principle. Finally, experimental verifications of the braking control strategy using visual perception for monorail cranes under different pedestrian obstacle distances, running speeds and simulated loads are carried out on the basis of a simulated monorail crane braking control test rig. The experimental results indicate that the real time distance measurement error of pedestrian obstacles is controlled within 4.4%, and the proposed braking control strategy using visual perception can effectively improve the safety and stability of monorail crane braking process.