Direct-drive connection of electric motors represents a suitable solution to friction and backlash problems introduced by mechanical reduction gears. Variable reluctance (VR) are a special type of switched reluctance motors whose construction is well suited for direct-drive connection. Although these motors are traditionally conceived as stepper motors, continuous motion can be obtained by implementing suitable closed-loop control in the drive. The authors’ main aim is to design a high-performance robust controller for a VR motor intended for velocity trajectory tracking in robotics applications where continuous motion is required. A cascade controller structure (velocity-torque) is considered. In the design of the torque controller, both feedback linearizing and sliding mode techniques are considered. Feedback linearization performs slightly better in the ideal case, but under more realistic operating conditions the sliding mode controller demonstrates comparable or even better performance. A very simple but extremely robust velocity controller is designed using a dynamic sliding mode approach, ensuring robustness to large variations of load torque and inertia, typical of direct-drive robotics applications. A simulation experiment of the overall controller with the motor connected to a single link robotic arm shows very good tracking properties as well as insensitivity to large variations of load torque and inertia.