Abstract: Owing to the interfere of higher order nonlinearity, parameters variability and surplus torque in electric dynamic load simulator(EDLS), it is hard to obtain satisfactory results by the traditional compensation algorithm. To overcome the deficiencies of the conventional control scheme for EDLS, a chattering free terminal sliding mode control scheme based on backstepping design was proposed. The EDLS model was divided into three subsystems and the control law was designed using chattering free terminal sliding mode to make the load tracking error converged to zero within finite time, which the switching control term was softened to be a smooth signal by a low-pass filter. Through Lyapunov stability analysis, it is shown that the control strategy guarantees the asymptotic stability and a finite time convergence of the closed-loop system. The experimental results show the effectiveness of the proposed control scheme. Compared with the traditional feedforward and feedback control strategy, the accuracy of the load torque tracking is improved significantly.