This paper considers an adaptive H ∞ control method with link frictions compensation and external disturbances rejection for robotic systems. It is assumed that all the system parameters for friction model and robot are unknown. The proposed method ensures that the unknown parameters are estimated and approximation errors of friction model and external disturbances are attenuated by means of H ∞ control performance. In spite of considering the adaptive H ∞ control problems, the compensator can design without solving the Hamilton-Jacobi-Isaacs equation. Simulation and experimental results are given to illustrate the effectiveness of our proposed method. It is also shown that we can easily design to determine the relative importance of the error and the expenditure of the input energy.