Due to the nonlinear nature of the dynamics of a robot manipulator, controlling the robot meticulously is a challenging issue for control engineers. The key purpose of this paper is to provide an accurate intelligent method for refining the functionality of orthodox PID controller in the problem of force/position control of a robot manipulator with unspecified robot dynamics during external disturbances. A grouping of imperialist competitive algorithm (ICA) and adaptive neuro fuzzy logic is applied for the tuning of PID parameters. This, therefore, forms an intelligent structure, adaptive neuro fuzzy inference system with proportional derivative plus integral (ANFISPD + I) controller, which is more precise in definite and indefinite circumstances. To show the efficiency of the proposed method, this algorithm is applied to solve constrained dynamic force/position control problem of PUMA robot manipulator. The simulated results are compared to those achieved from other evolutionary techniques such as Genetic Algorithm (GA) and Particle Swarm Optimisation (PSO). The simulation results exhibit that ICA-based ANFISPD + I outperforms the other evolutionary techniques. Highlights An ICA-ANFISPD + I-based hybrid force/position controller has been proposed. Easy to implement. Works well in the case of disturbances. Actuator Dynamics has been considered. External disturbances have been considered. Robot dynamics are unknown.