To solve the overfitting, underfitting and local minimum existing in neural networks, a digital modulation mode recognition method based on support vector machine (SVM) is proposed. Seven characteristic parameters are extracted from instantaneous amplitude, instantaneous phase, instantaneous frequency, frequency spectrum, and changes in characteristics of the envelope to train support vector machine. Compared with the existing algorithms, using binary tree theory to design multi-class classifier has the features of simple, high-speed, high-precision. The simulation results indicate that the scheme can achieve 97% recognition accuracy when the signal to noise ratio (SNR) is above 15 dB with the AWGN channel.