Pigeons show flocking and homing behaviors, which require characteristics including long-distance weight-bearing and continuous flight, with excellent navigation and spatial cognitive abilities. Pigeons have been widely used in animal robot research in recent years. Pigeon robots achieve motor behavior control by applying neural information intervention to specific neural targets in the pigeon’ s brain. This review summarizes research progress in pigeon robots based on the sensory system, motivation and emotional system or cortex and midbrain motor area respectively, according to the distribution of hierarchical multi-level neural regulatory targets in the pigeon’ s brain, with the aim of providing reference and guidance for further applied research into the use of pigeon robots in space perception, reconnaissance, and anti-terrorism search and rescue.