Abstract: With acceleration of intelligent agricultural equipment, researching automatic navigation technology has become an important means to achieve refined agricultural production．Based on navigation method, a technical branch was constructed, and overall technical overview, important applicants, inventors, and technical distribution of patent applications in this field were summarized．And situation of foreign patent applications in China was sorted out, a technical efficacy matrix was constructed through efficacy indexing, in order to seek gaps, research hotspots, and breakthroughs in technological development, aiming to provide feasible references for technology research and development of enterprises or research institutes．