Abstract: A methodology is proposed and implemented for compliance synthesis in robotic assembly manipulation. The process of assembly operation can be represented as a sequence of discrete contact states and transitions between them. The possible erroneous configurations of the robot are simulated and the corresponded force/torque characteristic can be obtained. The motion direction that can guide contacting part from the erroneous contact state to the desired or correct one is solved through analyzing primitive contact states'maintaining, gaining or losing, and is mapped to the corresponded force information. This association of force information with corrective motion information provides the compliance needed in robotic assembly. An experimental setup is established and experimental results of a simple assembly task are presented to testify the validity of the proposed methods.