Overview: Wireless optical communication refers to the technology of transmitting information in free space using light beams as carriers, which has the advantages of high bandwidth, low cost, and high security. Due to factors such as narrow signal beam and long transmission distance, it is difficult to establish and maintain a wireless optical communication link. Therefore, an acquisition, targeting, and tracking system needs to be established to prevent the communication link from being interrupted. In the wireless optical communication system, the optical components on the two platforms carrying the transmitter and the receiver are required to be coaxial in real time, and this process is usually called automatic aiming. In order to maintain the real-time aiming of the transceiver boresight of both transceivers, it is necessary to design a fast and high-precision APT system. A typical wireless optical communication APT system is shown in Figure 1. Liu Changcheng established and analyzed the simulation model in the APT system in atmospheric laser communication, and designed an automatic beam capture system; Hu Qidi designed a beacon light spot detection scheme using CCD; Yang Peisong proposed a coaxial aiming detection method, and designed the aiming control system and tracking system according to the method, and carried out field experiments; Zhao Qi designed an initial capture system and conducted a 1.3 km field experiment; Xu Wei designed a light spot detection system and proposed a corresponding image processing algorithm; Li Shiyan proposed an optical axis aiming scheme, which can effectively improve the detection accuracy and aiming accuracy of the system; Yan Xi designed a spot tracking system and conducted a 5.2 km field tracking experiment. The experimental results show that the tracking accuracy of the system can reach 5.4 μrad; Jing Yongkang designed a light spot image detection method, and conducted a 100 km laser communication experiment on this basis; Zhang Pu embedded a high-precision actuator in the APT system to achieve high-precision aiming and tracking, designed a focusing system and conducted field experiments of 10.2 km and 100 km. Liang Hanli designed an APT system that can be mounted on UAVs and conducted an airborne laser communication experiment through a simulated airborne experimental platform, and its tracking accuracy can reach 2.42 μrad; Ke Xizheng, Yang Shangjun and others proposed a fast aiming method. The method does not need to feed back the control signal from the receiving end to the transmitting end, and can complete the establishment of the uplink and the downlink at the same time. And carried out 1.3 km and 10.3 km field experiments to verify the method. This paper systematically analyzes the development and application of the APT system in wireless optical communication and introduces the research progress and achievements of Xi'an University of Technology in this field. Including the experimental analysis and verification of the performance of the designed initial capture system, compound axis control system and beam detection system Improvements have increased the effectiveness and reliability of the APT system.Optical wireless communication refers to the technology of transmitting information in free space using light waves as a carrier, which has the advantages of high bandwidth, low cost, and high security. The acquisition, pointing, and tracking (APT) system is the premise of establishing a wireless optical communication system. A simple, reliable, and dynamic APT system can overcome the impact of mechanical platform vibration and external environment changes on the wireless optical communication system. Therefore, it is necessary to conduct in-depth theoretical and experimental research on the APT system, so as to design a capture, aiming, and tracking method suitable for wireless optical communication. This paper analyzes the domestic and foreign research achievements in capturing, aiming, and tracking, and introduces the work done by Xi'an University of Technology in the field of automatic aiming. It mainly includes the progress of initial acquisition system, non-common visual axis control system, beam detection system, etc. At the same time, the field experiments of 1.3 km, 5.2 km, 10.2 km, and 100 km distance links are introduced to verify the effectiveness of the APT system. Finally, the development of APT in wireless optical communication is prospected.