Abstract: The instability of laser is a general phenomenon and chaotic light is viewed as a special form of laser diode outputs. In recent years,many applied techniques based on chaotic light are successively proposed and perfected.Combining with the research situation in domestic and abroad,the applications of chaotic laser in the areas of communication and measurement are introduced,such as chaotic secure communication,chaotic laser ladar,and chaotic optical time domain reflectometer. Development tendency of chaotic optical communication and chaotic laser ranging is reviewed as well.