A robust positioning control system has been studied using a friction parameter observer and a recurrent fuzzy neural network based on the sliding model. To estimate a nonlinear friction parameters of the LuGre friction model, a dual friction model-based observer is introduced. In addition, an approximating method for a system uncertainty has been developed using a recurrent fuzzy neural network technique to improve positioning performance. Experimental results have been presented to validate the performance of a proposed intelligent compensation scheme.