With the rapid development of micro aerial vehicle (MAV) technology, autonomous coverage and exploration of interest environments with multi-rotor MAVs have become a research hotspot. Firstly, this article briefly introduces the research contents of coverage and exploration planning of interest environments by using robotics. Then, three aspects are surveyed, i.e. coverage planning, exploration planning, as well as simultaneous coverage and exploration planning. In addition, the fundamental working principle, advantages and limitations of different methods are analyzed in detail. Finally, the problems and challenges are concluded according to the state of the art, and the future research trends and development directions are analyzed.