With the increasing dependence on the accuracy and effectiveness of information acquired during flight, the photoelectric image detection and hyper-speed flight technology have become the development trend of the future flight vehicles. However, when the flight vehicles equipped with optical imaging detection and guidance system fly at high speed in the dense atmosphere, the optical dome and incoming flow generate a complex flow filed because of intense interaction. The complex thermal response generated in optical windows brings aerodynamic thermal noise for the optical imaging detection system in the optical dome, and causes deviation, jitter, blur of the target, which is called aero-optical effect. From three levels——mechanism, project and application, research ideas and further works were put forward for aero-optical effect faced by the imaging detection system of high speed fight vehicle, aiming at providing reference ideas for study on aero-optical effect.