Abstract: As a novel biologically inspired robot,the continuum robot features a kind of flexible "invertebrate" backbone with no discrete joint and rigid link.The continuum robot has excellent bending ability,good adaptability to unstructured and highly congested environments.It not only can grasp or grip object with the end-effector attached at the end of the robot, like traditional robots,but also can grasp object by using whole arm manipulation.In this paper,the bionics principles and structure characteristics of continuum robot are analyzed,the present research state of the continuum robot is reviewed,the potential application is foreseen,and the problems needing further research are discussed.