With the intelligent development of manufacturing industry, industrial robots are more and more widely used for continuous contact operation, such as polishing, sanding, burring and assembling. End-effector with force control is a critical component of robots used for hybrid force/position control and continuous contact operation, which has an important effect on the operation quality and application field extension. In view of the above situation, it is of great importance for developing new robotic end-effector of high-performance to investigate the state, analyze the characteristics and key technology, and forecast the trends of development. The background of end-effector with force control was introduced firstly, and then the composition & classification, working mode and operation principle was presented. The key technologies of end-effector with force control were refined, including the comprehensive theory and optimization technique of parallel manipulator configuration, design technique of constant force compensatory actuator, technique of compensation of mass force, technique of flexible collision and technique of decoupling control. Furthermore, the mechanical, pneumatic, electrically driven end-effector with force control of single-DOF and multi-DOF was detailed summarized, as well as the advantages and disadvantages. The technology trends of the end-effector with force control include high precision and frequency response, electric driving, multi-DOF flexibility, high load capacity, integration and intellectualization. Analysis shows that the mechanical or pneumatic end-effector with force control is widely used nowadays, which has the disadvantages of large lagging, low control precision and response and can only realize constant force control of single-DOF. As a result, research on intelligent and electrically driven robotic end-effector with force control of high precision, response and multi-DOF will play an important role for the improvement of force control precision, surface adaptability, quality and efficiency of processing & assembly, and effectively promote the intelligent operation level of industrial robots.