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This volume deals with the problem of contact force control for a robot manipulator interacting with its environment. Chapter one is an introduction which describes various types of control strategies used for a robot manipulator and among them those treated in the book. A description of the experimental setup to validate the theoretical studies is provided. Chapter two treats motion control. The kinematic and dynamic models of a robotic manipulator are introduced and two control problems are studied: tracking and regulation. Several types of errors are computed and the issue of redundancy resolution is mentioned. Chapter three deals with indirect force control via two approaches: compliance control and impedance control. The motion control dynamics of the previous chapter is used and the interaction with the environment through the contact is modeled by a static (stiffness) model-based compensation scheme or a dynamic one (mass, damping). The next chapter is devoted to direct force control. The goal is to regulate (in a static or dynamic way) without stiffness information the force appearing in the interaction to a constant value, a situation which was not obtained previously. The model of chapter two is used again so that compliance is guaranteed and a PI controller is proposed. The methods are extended to simultaneous force and position or motion control. The motion occurs along the obstacle. Next, force tracking is obtained by adapting the estimate of the contact stiffness. Chapter five presents adaptive control versions including a passivity based one. Two Appendices show how to describe the orientation of the rigid body and the explicit kinematic or dynamic models of a six or seven joint manipulator. 117 references and an index end the volume. It should be mentioned that several experimental case studies are included throughout the book. Even if the control theoretic solutions are not very sophisticated using limited knowledge of the obstacle, this book addresses an important problem in robotics and may be recommended to professionals of this field.