The process of tension control for material testing using the Flexible Circuit Board testing machine (FCBTM) is featured with multi-variable, nonlinearity, time delays and time variation. In order to ensure the tension precision, the stability of servo motor' speed and the reliability of test results, this paper establishes an accurate system model for the FCBTM, in which a novel three-dimensional adaptive fuzzy PID controller is designed. Specially, the simulation results show that the proposed adaptive fuzzy control method is not only robust to the external disturbance but also with more excellent dynamic and steady-state characteristics than traditional ones.