I. INTRODUCTION The operation of the missile control system can be explained in three levels, the guidance system, the autopilot system and the actuation system. These three subsystems are present in all tactical aerospace vehicles. The guidance system performs the task of course correction, i.e. it finds the relative distance and line of sight (LOS) of the missile to its target with the help of onboard or offboard sensor systems. The guidance provides a reference command to the autopilot in the form of desired acceleration/orientation, necessary to maintain the missile in the desired trajectory which will ultimately lead to successful interception of the target. The autopilot system is the internal feedback control system that senses and reduces the difference between commanded and actual acceleration/orientation by issuing commands to the actuator system. The actuator system produces the desired deflection in the control effectors such that sufficient control force is produced to steer the vehicle along the desired trajectory. The block diagram of the three-level control scheme is shown in Fig.1 [58]. The function of the autopilot is twofold: to steer the vehicle according to the driving command and to ensure stability during flight. The tactical aerospace vehicle (TAV) autopilot design problem is considered and an attempt is made to provide a compilation of work done in this field over the past three decades. In the next section, the autopilot design problem is explained. In section III, the research works on the design of autopilots for tactical aerospace vehicles that have emerged in the last three decades have been collected in chronological order, on the basis of the models used and on the basis of the control philosophy of section IV. In section V, sum...... half of the paper ......training method in controlling agile interceptors and missiles with advanced microelectromechanical actuators”, Conf. on Decision and Control, Hawaii, December 2003.[70 ] Chen, Y.H., Chuang, J., Lee,T.S., "Fuzzy Modeling and Uncertainty-Based Control for Nonlinear Systems", American Control Conference, Philadelphia, June 1998.[71] Weil, R.D., Wise, K.A., “Design of Combined Aircraft and Jet Missile Autopilots Using the VSS Technique,” ​​Conf. on Decision and Control, Brighton, England, December 1991.[72] Balakrishnana, S.N., Ohlmeyer, E.J., Xin, M., “Integrated missile guidance and control using the θ-D method,” IEEE Trans. on Control Systems Technology, vol-14, issue-6, pp. 981-992, November 2006.[73] Jia,-2008.