Abstract: Self-healing material is a novel smart material which can be widely used as it can repair itself like organisms. Microencapsulated self-healing polymer matrix composites is one of the hottest research topics in the field of composite self-healing in recent years. In this paper, the self-healing systems of polymer matrix composites were reviewed. The emphasis was focused on the introduction of the concept and mechanism of self-healing of microcapsulated self-healing polymer materials, the structure and technology development of microcapsule. The effects of core material, wall material, self-healing matrix material and the critical stress of microcapsule etc. on the self-healing performance of composite were introduced as well. And the techniques applied to quantify the healing-efficiency were summarized. Finally, the research trends and challenges of microencapsulated self-healing polymer materials were discussed.