In the laser micro-Doppler signature analysis of vibrating targets, the joint time-frequency methods can provide useful information for target detection, classification and recognition. The analysis of the general nonlinear and non-stationary signal with traditional time-frequency analysis method can effectively extract signal characteristics. But there are great limitations in the strong background noise and weak modulation channel conditions. Hilbert-Huang transform (HHT) is employed as a new approach in micro-Doppler analysis. Simulation results in Matlab software show that it can achieve better performance than smoothed pseudo Wigner-Ville distribution (SPWVD) in different channel conditions.