The orbital angular momentum (OAM) carried by acoustic vortex beam can be transmitted to objects, which has a good application prospect in particle manipulation. In addition, the acoustic vortex beam also has great potentials in acoustic communication. The acoustic vortex beams with different OAM modes are orthogonal to each other, so the OAM mode can be introduced into the traditional acoustic communication, which provides a potential solution for realizing the high-speed, large-capacity and high-spectral efficiency of underwater acoustic communication technology in future. In this paper, we summarize the research progress of acoustic vortex beam, in which we mainly introduce the generation and detection scheme of acoustic vortex beam, its transmission characteristics, and its typical research cases in communication. Finally, the future development trend and the outlook of acoustic vortex beam are also analyzed and prospected.