Cultural heritage is the precious, non-renewable cultural resource of all humanity. Due to the preciousness of cultural heritage and also based on the basic principle of minimal intervention in heritage conservation, non-destructive analysis has always been the most important technology for materials characterization in the field of heritage science (e. g. studies on the original manufacturing process, deterioration mechanism and conservation/restoration technology). Therefore, developing and applying novel non-destructive analysis technology is an indispensable research direction in heritage science. Recently, the field-portable hyperspectral radiometer, originating from remote sensing as a light energy radiometer, has shown great application potential in analyzing heritage objects and has already been successfully applied in restoring ancient stone architecture, paintings, and others. As a non-invasive spectral technique that does not require sampling, the field-portable hyperspectral radiometer can acquire a full-band, high-resolution reflectance spectrum covering visible-near-infrared and shortwave infrared bands (350~2 500 nm) in a very short time. At the same time, it is highly portable. It can be used in the field or archaeological sites regardless of the environmental conditions. Moreover, remote sensing technology can be used to realize remote transmission and analysis of spectral data during spectral acquisition. All these characteristics are unique advantages for their application in characterizing artworks. This paper introduces the equipment type and characteristics of the field-portable hyperspectral radiometer commonly used first. The application status in the qualitative and quantitative analysis of organic/inorganic artworks, the analysis of conservation materials, and the in situ and real-time monitoring of the conservation/restoration process in the past ten years are reviewed afterwards. Then, two key problems that affect the accuracy and efficiency of using this technique are discussed in depth, i. e. the specification of spectral pre-treatment and the establishment of standard spectra databases. Finally, the development trend of this technique is forecasted. It is expected to have broad prospects in analysing fragile organic heritage objects, combining application of various analysis techniques and quantitative analysis.