Industrial robots have received high attention in the aviation manufacturing industry due to their intelligent advantages, and the rapid development of the global aviation manufacturing industry has given them a huge market demand. Industrial robots have been widely used in fields such as automobiles and 3Cs, but due to the wide variety of components, small batches, complex production processes, and higher accuracy in the aviation manufacturing field, higher performance requirements are put forward for industrial robots. Firstly, based on the characteristics of the aviation manufacturing industry, analyze the key technical requirements of industrial robots for high-precision, multifunctional, human-machine collaboration, rapid programming, and multi-machine collaboration; Secondly, the current application status of industrial robots in the field of aviation manufacturing at home and abroad is analyzed and summarized from the aspects of composite material component production, structural component processing, flexible assembly, surface spraying, intelligent detection, etc. Finally, it is predicted that industrial robots for aviation manufacturing should develop towards digitization, modularization and intelligence