Complex curved components are the core elements of high-end equipment in fields such as aerospace and marine vessels, and their measurement accuracy plays an irreplaceable role in ensuring the quality of high-end equipment manufacturing. To overcome the limitations of traditional manual and specialized manufacturing methods, vision-guided robotic systems provide a new approach for the high-end and intelligent processing of complex curved components, gradually becoming a research hot spot in the field of robotic intelligent manufacturing. Focusing on the 3D measurement methods of robots, this review first summarizes the characteristics of measurement schemes in different manufacturing scenarios according to sensor types and application scenarios, so as to help researchers quickly and comprehensively understand this field. Then, according to the measurement process, key core technologies are categorized as system calibration, measurement planning, point cloud fusion, feature recognition, etc. The major research achievements in various categories over the past decade are reviewed, and the existing research limitations are analyzed. Finally, the technical challenges faced by robotic measurement are summarized, and future development trends are discussed from the perspectives of application scenarios, measurement requirements, measurement methods, etc. © 2024 Chinese Mechanical Engineering Society. All rights reserved.