Abstract: Firstly, the development and research status of the soft robot is introduced with the emphasis on some main research achievements abroad and at home in the fields of soft robot driving mode and mechanism. Then, the driving modes of the soft robot are concluded as fluid driving, electroactive polymer driving, magnetic rheological elastomer driving, shape memory alloy driving and chemical driving, and so on. The scientific principle of each driving mode and the corresponding typical driving structures are introduced, and the current bottlenecks and the key scientific issues in the development of the soft robot driving technology are clarified and analyzed. Finally, we try to make an outlook to the challenges and development trends of the driving mode research of the soft robot.