Abstract:With the increasing frequency of human exploration of the ocean, un-manned surface vessels have gained widespread attention and significant development due to their advantage of replacing humans in completing dangerous operations in harsh environments. With the development of intelligent technology, the combination of artificial intelligence technology and intelligent control of unmanned boats is becoming increasingly close. The emergence of artificial intelligence technology has improved the autonomous navigation, situational awareness, underwater detection, and health management capabilities of surface unmanned boats. Firstly, this article provides a brief introduction and analysis of the necessity and technical difficulties in the development of surface unmanned boats in the above four aspects; Then, summarize and review the development and application of artificial intelligence in four aspects, and briefly analyze the current technological difficulties; Finally, the key scientific issues that urgently need to be addressed in intelligent control for surface unmanned vessels were summarized, and feasible solutions and future development in this application re-search field were further discussed.