This paper presents a robust nonlinear controller equipped with a friction estimator for a 6 degree of freedom (DOF) parallel manipulator in the task space coordinates. The requisite 6 DOF system states for the task space control are acquired by an alpha-beta tracker and a numerical forward kinematic solution. The Friedland-Park friction observer in the joint space coordinates provides friction estimates that help to improve the control performance. Finally, the RNTC turns out to outper form a nonlinear task space control and a popularly adopted PID control with the friction estimator in the joint space coordinates. (c) 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.