As the world's largest vegetable producer and consumer, the area of vegetable cultivation in China is constantly increasing. However, it faces challenges such as relatively low levels of mechanization and intelligentization, as well as the annual increase in labor costs. With the development of robot technology, agricultural robots have been increasingly widely applied in the vegetable production field and have become a key technical means to replace manual labor and improve production efficiency and quality. To systematically understand the research status of robotic technology in vegetable production and clarify its future development direction, this paper first elaborates on the definition of agricultural robots. Secondly, focusing on the three core operation links in vegetable production: sowing and transplanting, field management, and harvesting and sorting, it sorts out advanced research results at home and abroad, and analyzes the relevant research progress from three dimensions: perception, decision-making, and control. This includes the SLAM-based autonomous navigation technology and path planning principles based on multi-information fusion; the technical routes and key technology research levels of machine vision application in various links of vegetable production; and the progress achieved in the control technology of operation execution mechanisms and end-effectors in response to specific agronomic requirements and operational environment characteristics. Finally, the paper analyzes the main technical challenges faced by current agricultural robots in vegetable production, namely the significant bottlenecks in applicability and operational efficiency, and looks forward to future development directions. Future research should focus on the development of multi-functional operation robots, which requires breaking through multi-robot collaborative control technology and deepening specialized and modular design; at the same time, policy support is also indispensable. With the continuous advancement of technology and the joint efforts of various parties, robotic technology is expected to become a key support for optimizing the agricultural labor structure, improving vegetable production efficiency, and realizing smart agriculture.