Task allocation is one of the most important technologies for the unmanned aerial vehicle(UAV)swarm to effectively fulfill their combat mission.With the rapid development of UAV swarm technology and the change of combat style,the field of combat missions of UAV swarm continues to expand,the scope of task allocation continues to extend,and the scale and complexity of task allocation problems continue to increase,which have posed new challenges for task allocation technology of the UAV swarm.This paper conducted a throughout review of the current studies on the UAV swarm operation theories,task allocation modeling,task pre-allocation and task reallocation algorithms,task allocation under joint application of heterogeneous unmanned system.Several key questions of the UAV swarm task allocation problem,including generalized modeling of the UAV swarm tasks,optimization of task pre-allocation algorithm for multi-task,optimization of task reallocation algorithm for emergencies in limited time,and cooperative task allocation to large-scale heterogeneous unmanned system under tight coupling of path planning are identified.On the basis of that,the future development directions of the UAV swarm task allocation technology are discussed,which could provide new research ideas and solutions for improving the solution quality and solution speed of UAV swarm task allocation.This review has important reference significance for the comprehensive understanding of task allocation technology of UAV swarm.