This paper proposes an intelligent sliding mode control method for robotic systems with the unknown bound of model uncertainties. In our control structure, the unknown bound of model uncertainties is used as the gain of the sliding controller. Then, we employ the function approximation technique to estimate the unknown nonlinear function including the width of boundary layer and the uncertainty bound of robotic systems. The adaptation laws for all parameters of the self-recurrent wavelet neural network and those for the reconstruction error compensator are derived from the Lyapunov stability theorem, which are used for an on-line control of robotic systems with model uncertainties and external disturbances. Accordingly, the proposed method can not only overcome the chattering phenomenon in the control effort but also have the robustness regardless of model uncertainties and external disturbances. Finally, simulation results for the five-link biped robot are included to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.