To position the target with a large field of view for a novel compound eye system, the design features of the system, mathematical models for positioning target, three-dimensional coordinates of target array, calibration methods and the positioning performance were investigated. Firstly, the design of the compound eye system and its structure were introduced and a mathematical model for positioning the target was established. With an optical splitter,the verticality between target plane and its horizontal movement axle and the parallelity between target plane and compound eye plane were adjusted. Then, By using the methods of vanishing points and the common imaging point of different points on the Y-axis to get the initial point and initial distance, the three-dimensional coordinate of every point located on the target plane was obtained. Finally, by deriving the angles between every target and corresponding channel to achieve the imaging center, the corresponding relation between the angle of each channel and the imaging center was established. Experimental results show that the system calibrated initially can position the target with the viewing angle within 110° on the horizontal plane and 90° on the vertical plane and the distance precision for target positioning can be limited to 2%. The scheme can meet the requirement of compound eye for nonlinear calibration and has operational flexibility.