In recent years, China is making great efforts to develop aerospace industry. The building of flexible manufacturing units or production lines and the realization of rapid, flexible and automated production based on industrial robots play important roles in transforming and upgrading the production mode of aerospace manufacturing enterprises and upgrading equipment manufacturing capabilities and product performance. However, due to limitation of the structure of the base and environment, the absolute positioning accuracy of the industrial robot is low and the long-term stability is poor.Therefore, the industrial robot can not directly adapt to the applications and demands of various industries in the modern new manufacturing environment. This paper reviews and summarizes the current research methods and technologies in improving robot positioning accuracy at home and abroad, and puts forward the research ideas of improving the positioning accuracy of industrial robots. It has a certain guiding significance for the application and development of industrial robots in aerospace industry.