Environmental visual perception technology is one of the main means for intelligent vehicles to obtain external environmental information and the precondition for autonomous driving of intelligent vehicles. Based on the comprehensive analysis of the detection technology and methods targeted at different detection objects, the main contents of environmental visual perception research are provided, and the key technologies that the study involves including lane detection technology, vehicle detection technology, the pedestrian detection technology, and traffic signs detection technology are discussed. The advantages and disadvantages of each sub-technique of each technology are analyzed. Finally, on the basis of summarization of the paper, the prospect of unmanned environment of visual perception technology in the future development direction is given：the development of the multi-feature fusion based environment visual perception technology; the fusion application of several environment perception technologies under complicated conditions; the application of the three-dimensional image in picture processing; the application of the improved CNN method in picture processing.