Abstract: Hippocampus and entorhinal cortex of mammalian brains are key brain regions involved in spatial cognition, enabling animals to autonomously navigate in unknown environments. With the increasing demand on autonomous and intelligent navigation systems, it is extremely urgent to develop brain-inspired robot navigation technologies. In this paper, the neurophysiological mechanisms of spatial cognition of mammals are reviewed, and computational models of spatial cognition and their applications to brain-like robot navigation systems are introduced. Finally, the challenges and future research directions of brain-like navigation technology are discussed.