Environmental quality is closely related to the quality of life and the environmental drilling rig plays an indispensable role in environmental quality testing. This paper reviews the working principle and development process of the direct push, sonic vibration and rotary environmental sampling drilling rig with summarization of the gap between domestic and foreign drilling rigs in intelligence, compact structure and appearance, and presents that the key capabilities of environmental sampling rigs include mobility, drilling capacity and sample fidelity-keeping ability. Finally, it is pointed out that the environmental sampling rig will develop towards the direction of using clean energy, automatically analyzing samples and adapting to various situations.