The present disclosure discloses a neural network adaptive tracking control method for joint robots, which proposes two schemes: robust adaptive control and neural adaptive control, comprising the following steps: 1) establishing a joint robot system model; 2) establishing a state space expression and an error definition when taking into consideration both the drive failure and actuator saturation of the joint robot system; 3) designing a PID controller and updating algorithms of the joint robot system; and 4) using the designed PID controller and updating algorithms to realize the control of the trajectory motion of the joint robot. The present disclosure may solve the following technical problems at the same time: the drive saturation and coupling effect in the joint system, processing parameter uncertainty and non-parametric uncertainty, execution failure handling during the system operation, compensation for non-vanishing interference, and the like.