The appearance of 1908 marine compass marks the beginning of modern navigation and guidance technology. 1932, R.H. Goddard of the United States used gyroscopes and gas rudders to control rocket flight for the first time. At the same time, radio navigation systems, such as radio beacons and radio compasses, began to be used for aircraft navigation. During World War II, German scientists developed a simple inertial guidance system and applied it to the V-2 missile. Until 1980s, many launch vehicles and missiles still used this inertial guidance principle. After the war, some major industrial countries have made great progress in the research and development of guidance systems.

In 1950s, inertial guidance system has been used in aircraft and submarine navigation, while missiles mainly adopt radio-inertial composite guidance. During this period, people gradually solved the basic technical problems of command guidance, beam guidance and homing guidance. Although infrared guidance is adopted, its performance is poor. With the improvement of the accuracy of inertial instruments and the development and application of error separation compensation technology, the accuracy of inertial guidance system has been significantly improved.

In 1960s, inertial guidance system was widely used. During this period, optical tracking and photoelectric guidance technologies have also been developed.

In 1970s, the types of guidance systems became more and more complete, and the accuracy was greatly improved. They are used in various low-altitude aircrafts, unmanned aircrafts, missiles and space flights, such as the recoverable satellite and communication satellite project in China, the Apollo moon landing project and the space shuttle in the United States.