Recent efforts in the development of an experimental robot system for the evaluation of the real-world performance of model-based force control algorithms are described. First, a model-based adaptive robot control algorithm for simultaneous position and force trajectory tracking of a robot arm whose gripper is in point contact with a smooth surface is reviewed. Second, a new experimental robot system for the testing of these new force control algorithms is described. Third, preliminary experiments with this arm show the performance of the new adaptive model-based force controller to be superior to its non-model-based counterpart.