AbstractThis article describes the detailed friction modeling of the General Electric GP132 industrial robot. Friction is an area whose importance is often discounted in the development of control systems because it is thought to be insignificant or unmodelable. This work demonstrates that friction does have a predictable structure, and that significant performance improvement can be realized through its proper compensation. Experiments performed to determine the static, Coulomb, and viscous friction of the GP132 are presented. In addition to these components, the robot is shown to have significant gravity load‐dependent and position‐dependent friction. The accuracy of the friction models are verified through several experiments and are shown to be considerably better than previously formulated models.