Tropical fruits are significant export products for many tropical and subtropical countries, playing a crucial role in regional economic development. With the continuous advancement of agricultural intelligent equipment and the integration of emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, and computer vision, automated and intelligent tropical fruit harvesting robots have gradually become a research hotspot in the field of agricultural harvesting. The application and research progress of harvesting robots in the tropical fruit industry was comprehensively reviewed, and the current status of tropical fruit harvesting both domestically and internationally was outlined. It highlighted the growing demand for efficient and sustainable harvesting solutions due to labor shortages and increasing production costs. The technical characteristics of harvesting machinery for different tropical fruits were analyzed, such as bananas, pineapples, and mangoes, based on the complexity of their growing environments and the uniqueness of crop growth patterns. The key technologies of various subsystems in tropical fruit harvesting robots were also discussed, including fruit identification and localization, robotic arm manipulation, and intelligent control systems. The current technical challenges were examined, such as improving recognition accuracy in complex environments and enhancing adaptability to different fruit varieties. Finally, it was looked forward to the opportunities presented by high-tech advancements such as artificial intelligence, big data analytics, and IoT in empowering agricultural equipment. It proposed that future tropical fruit harvesting robots would increasingly move towards intelligent and unmanned harvesting, with potential applications in precision agriculture and smart farming systems.