To meet the power requirements of 3C electric products, the research of Li-ion batteries is focused on developing a cathode material with high capacity, high operating voltage, high capacity retention, high safety and low cost. The practical capacity of cathode materials is strongly related to their structural characteristics. To increase the practical capacity of cathode materials, it is also a main research to understand their structural characteristics. The research and development of cathode materials for Li-ion batteries will be introduced in this paper. Combining in-situ experiments, such as X-ray absorption spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction and solid state NMR etc., provides the long-range structure, local structure around the selected absorber and the Li environments in the framework of cathode materials developed recently. The detailed information about their structural characteristics during Li insertion and extraction processes would be helpful to develop a novel cathode material for Li-ions batteries.