An industrial robot, installed real manufacturing processes an element of the system autmation, can be considered as an uncertain system due to dynamic uncertainties in inertial parameters and varying payloads. Most difficuties in controlling a robot manipulator are caused by the fact that the dynamic equations describing the motions of the manipulator are inherently nonlinear and heavily coupled effects between joints and associated links. Existing robot conrol systems have constant predefined gains and do not cover the complex dynamic interactions between manipulator joints. As a result, the manipulator is severly limited in range of application, speed of operation and variation of payload. The proposed controller is operated by adjusting its gains based on the response of the manipulator in such a way that the manipulator closely matches the reference model trajectories defined by the desinger. The proposed manipulator studied has two loops, an inner loop of model reference adaptive controller and an outer loop of state feedback controller with integral action to guarantee the stability of the adaptive scheme. This adaptation algorithm is based on the hyperstailiy approach with an improved Lyapunov function. The coupling among joints and the nonlinearity in the dynamic equation are explicitly considered. The designed manipulator controller shows good tracking performance in practical working environment, various load variations and parameter uncertainties.