The r ese arch sta tus of  aut onomo us c ollision  av oid- ance tech nolog y for marine v essel s at hom e a nd abroad in re- cent years was sum marized. The meth ods of aut omat ic collision a voidance we re di vided in to three cat egori es and the research prog ress of each ty pe of met hods as we ll as the 
devel- opm ent and application of collision avoid ance system f or marine ves sels were analyzed re spectively . The uns olved prob- lems in the research of ship collision avoidance technology wer e summar ize d, incl udin g collisio n avoida nce decisio n-mak- ing pr oblems in nar row and crowded w aters, mul ti-ship au ton- omous co ordination collision avoida nce problems base d on in- form ation exc hange be tween ships , coordin ation and integra-tion prob lems be tween au ton omou s co llision avoida nce system and ship control system , as well as intelligence , reliabi lity and com pleteness testi ng pro blems of a uton omous co llision a- voidance system. This paper elaborated t he r esea rch tren d of auto matic co llisio n avo idance techn olo gy, and pu t fo rwar d the core theories a nd key techn ologies t o be solve d in the next step, in cluding mu lti-vessel c ollision a voidance the ories and efficien t algorithms combining mach ine lea rn ing in co mplex wate rs, self-ad aption integr ation and fu sion of differ ent colli- sion av oidance al gorith ms, interactive colla bor ation t heories between intel ligent ships an d traditio nal ships i n mixed traffic env ironme nt, i ntegr ation of collisi on avoidanc e decisi on-mak- in g system and ship mo tion contro l system , and testing theories of a utonomous collision avoidance system , etc.