This paper deals with the global position control problem of robot manipulators in joint space, a new family of control schemes consisting of a suitable combination of hyperbolic functions is presented. The proposed control family includes a large class of bounded hyperbolic-type control schemes to drive both position error and derivative action terms plus gravity compensation. To ensure global asymptotic stability of closed-loop system equilibrium point, we propose an energy-shaping based strict Lyapunov function. To verify the efficiency of the proposed control algorithm, an experimental comparative analysis between the well known unbounded linear PD control and three hyperbolic-type control schemes of the proposed family on a three degrees of freedom direct-drive robot manipulator is analysed.