Abstract: Tactile sensing is an essential prerequisite for robot to immediately interact with environment. Compared with other robot sensing the lagging of the development in tactile sensing is significant. First,this paper reviews the history of the research and development in tactile sensing,shows the deficiency of the development and analyzes the major reasons. After report on the current state of the art in tactile sensing the paper introduces the trends of the development of robotics and prospects for the development in tactile sensing. Finally we make a suggestion on the future research and development in robot tactile sensing.