Nowadays, lots of efforts have been made to develop new technology for navigation system of underwater vehicle with the increasingly improved requirements of precise positioning, obstacles-avoidance, energy-saving in locomotion and stabilization in response to turbulent currents. In nature, fish have a great ability to localize prey, school, navigate, rheotaxis, etc. using the lateral-line organ. The biological lateral line system has inspired the researchers’ efforts to artificial lateral lines for applications in underwater vehicles and robots. In this paper, the working mechanism of the fish lateral line system has been described. Then the research status both at biology and at mechanics on the artificial lateral line system at home and abroad has been reviewed. To make a comparison with acoustic navigation system USBL,The key technologies and developing tendency as well as potential applications are described. At last, an insight on the future research directions and route of artificial lateral-line system have been given.

Based on the study of fish lateral line sensing mechanism, integrated fluid dynamics, boundary layer theory, coupling theory and so on. To establish a neural network model similar to the fish neuromas model. After the numerical calculation and simulation analysis to simulate fish lateral line system, we can get the conclusions to apply to autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) navigation and target recognition. Provided a new method for AUV navigation and environment perception. Computer simulation results presented that based on the fish lateral line sensing mechanism to build a perception model, AUV can identify a new water condition distinguishably. This discovery can be used in navigation and positioning of AUV.