Human-robot collaboration is playing more and more important roles in current deployments of robotic systems in our lives. Haptic perception and intelligent control are essential to ensure safety and efficiency of human-robot interaction. However, existing robotic sensory and control systems are deficient in terms of performance issues, complexity, and cost. Here, the authors report a multifunctional electronic skin (e-skin) incorporating multiple perceptions with intelligent robotic control, by which robots can safely and dexterously interact with humans. The e-skin with a simple and cost-effective sensory structure has multimodal perceptions of proximity, temperature, contact force, and contact position with broad measuring range, high sensitivity, and fast response. The e-skin is applied onto robots to accomplish obstacle avoidance, safe and dexterous human-robot interaction, smart teaching, and playing Tai-Chi, which demonstrate a broad range of applications for intelligent robots equipped with e-skins.

Multisensory tactile systems play an important role in enhancing robot intelligence. A competent robotic tactile system needs to be simple in structure and easily operated, especially with multiple sensations, and have good coordinate ability like human skin. A novel multisensory tactile system for humanoid robotic hands is proposed, allowing the hand to identify objects by grasping and manipulating them. Robotic multifunction sensors based on skin‐inspired thermosensation and structured with micro platinum ribbons partially covered with piezo‐thermic silver‐nanoparticle‐doped porous polydimethylsiloxane membrane simultaneously and independently detect contact pressure, local ambient temperature, and thermal conductivity and temperature of an object. Multiple tactile information which is obtained by the robotic sensors is fused comprehensively based on neural network classification to identify diverse objects in uncertain and dynamic gripping with an object recognition accuracy of 95%. This multisensory system enables robotic hand to better interact with its environment, enhances robotic intelligence, and makes various complex tasks feasible for robots, such as sorting material or rescuing from fire or other disasters.

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Human–robot interaction and collaboration are emerging as critical and necessary technologies as robots become more commonplace in our lives. Haptic perception and intelligent control are essential to ensure safe and dexterous interactions between humans and robots. Traditional interaction methods using robot proprioceptors rely on robot dynamic models that complicate robotic controls and narrow their adaptabilities. Herein, an intelligent interactive control method is proposed based on a generalized virtual spring‐damping force‐touch mechanism using haptic e‐skin, which converts contact forces and contact positions on the e‐skin to generalized forces for implementing robot compliance controls of multidimensional movements. By touching the e‐skin mounted on a robot arm, a human can readily manipulate the robot arm, achieving flexible movement and rotation. An intelligent architecture of human–robot‐in‐the‐loop is proposed to accomplish versatile interactive and collaborative actions. A task learning is demonstrated for a robot from human, that is, a human teaches a robot how to pick up, carry, and place an object into a box by hand‐by‐hand teaching, which shows promising prospects in intelligent robot applications.