<p>Aiming the issue that friction compensation has been few considered in the polishing force control system. In order to reduce the influence of friction and improve the precision of polishing force control in the face of the phenomenon that friction compensation has not been considered, this paper conducts friction analysis and compensation study of polishing force control. According to friction compensation theory and requirements of pneumatic polishing force control, the friction of pneumatic polishing force system is analyzed and the friction model is identified. The pneumatic polishing force control strategy based on feedforward PID friction compensation is designed and the simulation is carried out. The results show that the friction compensation strategy based on feedforward PID significantly accelerates the adjustment speed, and the steady-state error is decreased to 0.01&#xa0;N. Experiments of pneumatic polishing force control on the basic of feedforward PID friction compensation are carried out. The error of the feedforward PID friction compensation algorithm is distributed in range from − 0.5 to 1&#xa0;N, and the average error at different expected values is less than 0.2&#xa0;N. The feedforward PID friction compensation strategy can be more effective on reducing the effect of friction on pneumatic polishing force control system and can improve control accuracy. It will provide promoting in automation and intelligence development of polishing process.</p>