Removing nighttime haze technique is a research hotspot in both digital image processing and computer vision, which is of great significance in the fields of aerospace, autonomous driving and traffic monitoring. Surveyed the domestic and foreign research on nighttime image defogging in recent years, summarized from the viewpoint of the traditional methods based on physical models and the method based on deep learning. After that, illustrated those algorithms in detail and then characterized their strengths and limitations, followed by comparison and analysis from subjective and objective evaluation respectively. Finally, future research directions were prospected and some suggestions were given.