Abstract: Recent years, along with the development of head mounted display (HMD) in lightweight and miniaturization, a new style of HMD which is based on retinal scanning is gradually becoming a research hotspot in both fields of virtual reality and helmet mounted display. With a unique scanning device to control the coherent beam generated by the laser diode (LD) and scan the beam in two dimensions to produce an image, retinal scanning display (RSD) can directly scan an image on the observer's retina, which has the advantages of large field of view, high brightness and compact structure. Based on the RSD's research reports and results of foreign countries, the basic principle and technological developments of RSD were briefly summarized. Meanwhile, the current progress and key technology in this field were emphasized. At last, a brief outlook about the future development trends and application prospect of RSD was discussed.