Abstract: In order to meet such issues as being hard to sample data,providing less realistic feedbacks and being applied in limited fields in tactile representation technology,this paper first describes the basic theories of tactile perception and representation,analyzes different methods and characteristics of raw data sampling,signal modeling and tactile rendering.The categories and working principles of typical tactile representation systems are then summarized along with discussion of the main tactile applications.Based on the analysis of the current research status of tactile representation technology,a description on the future directions of the technology is provided,which includes proposing parametric models of tactile perception,improving the accuracy of the tactile data feature extraction and the signal modeling,designing more common and effective tactile representation systems,and developing multi-sensory tactile interactive applications.