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We present an innovative hybrid control strategy for contact detection and force regulation of robotic manipulators. This hybrid architecture controls the robotic manipulator during the following stages of interaction with the work environment: the free motion, the transition phase, and the constrained motion. The proposed control strategy is to switch between a position and a force controller with hysteresis relying only on contact force measurements. We implement this strategy in a hybrid controller and provide a design procedure which depends on the viscoelastic parameters of the work environment. Our controller guarantees contact detection and force regulation without bounce-off effects between the robotic manipulator and the work environment from compact sets of initial conditions. Additionally, the resulting closed-loop system is robust to measurement noise. We include simulations that show how the proposed hybrid control strategy guarantees good performance in the cases of stiff and compliant work environments, and in the presence of measurement noise. © 2007 IEEE.