  Any phenomenon in nature is potential to be an inspiration for us to propose
new ideas. Lateral line is a typical example which has attracted more interest
in recent years. With the aid of lateral line, fish is capable of acquiring
fluid information around, which is of great significance for them to survive,
communicate and hunt underwater. In this paper, we briefly introduce the
morphology and mechanism of the lateral line first. Then we focus on the
development of artificial lateral line which typically consists of an array of
sensors and can be installed on underwater robots. A series of sensors inspired
by the lateral line with different sensing principles have been summarized. And
then the applications of artificial lateral line system in hydrodynamic
environment sensing and vortices detection, dipole oscillation source
detection, and autonomous control of underwater robots have been surveyed. In
addition, the existing problems and future foci in the field have been further
discussed in detail. The current works and future foci have demonstrated that
artificial lateral line has great potentials of research and contributes to the
applications of underwater robots.
