With the development of the aviation industry, the performance of aircraft has been improving, and the requirements for quality inspection have been continuously increasing. Compared with traditional manual methods, robot-based automated inspection technology has higher operating accuracy and efficiency, and has been widely used in aviation manufacturing and maintenance processes. This article focuses on the application of robot-based automated inspection technology in various aspects such as component processing, finished product quality inspection, and aircraft maintenance and repair over the past decade, especially in surface drilling process inspection, large, irregular and complex component processing inspection, internal material nondestructive inspection, structural shape inspection, aircraft skin and surface quality inspection and aircraft internal narrow space inspection. This paper reviews in detail the application effects of different kinds of robots such as six-axis industrial robots, wheeled mobile robots, crawling robots, continuum robots and unmanned aerial vehicles with ultrasonic, optical and other types of detection technologies. Most of the articles reviewed were summarized in a table for reference by the researchers concerned. In conclusion, research on robot-based automated inspection technology is of great practical significance for improving quality control in aviation manufacturing and maintenance processes, but it still faces challenges of insufficient flexibility, insufficient algorithm intelligence and insufficient human-computer interaction research.