Abstract: In order to promote the intelligent development of heading face and improve the autonomous navigation technology of heading equipment, this paper analyzes the problems faced by the navigation and positioning technology of cantilever roadheader such as photoelectric navigation, inertial navigation and multi-sensor fusion. Among them, photoelectric navigation is subdivided into total station, laser pointer, spatial intersection, IGPS, UWB and visual navigation, and the navigation technologies of various cantilever roadheaders are summarized respectively. Finally, by analyzing the application and future development trend of cantilever roadheader navigation and positioning technology, the development of cantilever roadheader navigation technology is prospected. It is considered that the photoelectric navigation technology is mature, but the environmental adaptability is poor; the inertial navigation has high positioning accuracy and strong environmental adaptability, but it is difficult to overcome the error accumulation problem caused by long-duration and short-distance operation of the cantilever roadheader; the multi-information and multi-sensor fusion (integrated navigation) technology that combines the two will be the main research direction of the navigation of the cantilever roadheader in the future. However, it is difficult to make breakthroughs in hardware technology at present. Therefore, it is possible to give priority to the application of more robust algorithms to integrate the existing navigation technologies, so as to improve the navigation accuracy of cantilever roadheaders, thereby further promote the development of mine intelligence.