For the problem of the system state variable taking a long time to reach the sliding mode surface and the chattering frequency being high in the sliding mode surface, a sliding mode control method based on the adaptive reaching law is proposed, the system state variable is introduced based on the subreaching law, and an improved variable-speed reaching law is added with reference to the characteristics of the hyperbolic tangent function. The sliding mode control method is divided into two stages, namely, the initial state to the critical value s = ยฑ1 and the system state variable reaching the equilibrium point of the sliding mode surface, and the total time obtained is less than the sum of these two stages. Secondly, this method is adopted in the electro-hydraulic position servo system, and a sliding mode controller is established. Through an AMESim/Simulink co-simulation, it is compared with the sliding mode controller based on the traditional exponential reaching law. The results show that this method can effectively reduce the jitter of the system, reduce the time for the system to reach the sliding surface, and improve the robustness of the system.