Pigeons have the habits of clustering and homing, which are good at 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 robot achieves motor behavior control by applying neural information intervention to specific neural targets in the pigeon’s brain. According to the distribution of hierarchical multi-level neural regulatory targets in the pigeon’s brain, this review summarizes the research progress of pigeon robot based on the sensory system, motivation and emotional system or cortex and midbrain motor area respectively. This review aims to provide reference and guidance for further application research of pigeon robot in space perception, reconnaissance and anti-terrorism search and rescue.