The paper stated the development status of the rescue robot under the dangerous catastrophe environment at home and abroad, summarized the key problems of the rescue robot and provided the development tendency. The analysis was conducted individually on the research status and application condition of the fire rescue robot, earthquake rescue robot, mine rescue robot, nuclear accident rescue robot and underwater rescue robot. A technical summarization was conducted on each robot. The conclusion showed that the common key technology of the rescue robot under the dangerous environment would include four capacities, such as the excellent mobile performances, perception capacity, communication capacity and duration capacity. Meanwhile, according to the application environment of different rescue robot, the paper indicated the key problem faced to each robot and pointed out that with the technical development, the rescue function integration, rescue behavior independence, rescue mission coordination and rescue equipment lightweight of any kind of the robot would be the development tendency.