Abstract: Multi-degree-of-freedom spherical clamping traveling-wave ultrasonic motors are compact and free of electromagnetic interference, making them an ideal choice for use in space and robotics applications. However, due to the spherical clamping design and the characteristics of the traveling-wave ultrasonic motor, this motor structure must deal with a nonlinear model, low damping characteristics, serious coupling between shafts, and limited rotor range. As a result, the motor operation is prone to overshoots and oscillations. Therefore, to achieve smooth and accurate positioning control, this paper presents an enhanced damping control method for the clamping traveling-wave ultrasonic motor. This method can quantitatively increase the motor damping and limit the rotation speed during the position control based on the practical demands, effectively avoid oscillations and overshoots, and improve the robustness to external disturbance. In addition, aiming to deal with the multi-axis coupling and model nonlinearity, the extended state observer is introduced to linearize the model and decouple the control between axes, which is convenient for the design and implementation of the control. Finally, the effectiveness of the proposed method is verified by experiments.