Pneumatic artificial muscle (PAM) is a potential actuator in human–robot interaction systems, especially rehabilitation systems. However, PAM is a nonlinear actuator with uncertainty and a considerable delay in characteristics, making control challenging. This study presents a discrete-time sliding mode control approach combined with the adaptive fuzzy algorithm (AFSMC) to deal with the unknown disturbance of the PAM-based actuator. The developed fuzzy logic system has parameter vectors of the component rules that are automatically updated by an adaptive law. Consequently, the developed fuzzy logic system can reasonably approximate the system disturbance. When operating the PAM-based system in multi-scenario studies, experimental results confirm the efficiency of the proposed strategy.