Articular cartilage has extraordinary mechanical properties, which are one of the most critical factors in human movement and load transmission. With the increase of sport participation and population aging, patients suffering cartilage injury and degeneration became more and more popular. Accurate acquisition of mechanical properties for articular cartilage is the key process of cartilage injury and functional evaluation. The state-of-the-art research all over the world was then reported, focusing on the indirect estimation of the mechanical properties for articular cartilage. Furthermore, we proposed some new perspectives of this research topic in the paper.