This paper presents a bio-inspired backstepping adaptive sliding mode control strategy for a novel 3 degree of freedom(3-DOF) parallel mechanism with actuation redundancy. Based on the kinematic model and the dynamic model, a sliding mode controller is designed to assure the tracking performance, and an adaptive law is introduced to approximate the system uncertainty including parameters variation, external disturbances and un-modeled part. Furthermore, a bio-inspired model is introduced to solve the inherent chattering problem of sliding mode control and provide a chattering free control. The simulation and experimental results testify that the proposed bio-inspired backstepping adaptive sliding mode control can achieve better performance(the tracking accuracy,robustness, response speed, etc.) than the conventional slide mode control. This paper presents a bio-inspired backstepping adaptive sliding mode control strategy for a novel 3 degree of freedom (3-DOF) parallel mechanism with actuation redundancy. Based on the kinematic model and the dynamic model, a sliding mode controller is designed to assure the tracking performance, and an adaptive law is introduced to approximate the system uncertainty including parameters variation, external disturbances and un-modeled part. Furthermore, a bio-inspired model is introduced to solve the inherent chattering problem of sliding mode control and provide a chattering free control. The simulation and experimental results testify that the proposed bio-inspired backstepping adaptive sliding mode control can achieve better performance (the tracking accuracy, robustness, response speed, etc.) than the conventional slide mode control.