Aiming at the disadvantage that the photoelectric platform is greatly affected by friction when it rotates at low speed, the "dead zone" phenomenon appears in the speed following curve, and the tracking performance is obviously reduced, a friction force compensation method based on intelligent differential evolution algorithm and Lurge friction model is proposed in the paper. By collecting and recording the friction force when the photoelectric turntable moves at a constant speed in the forward and reverse directions, the corresponding relationship between the different speeds of the turntable and the friction force is established. The static parameters of the friction model are identified with the least square method, and the dynamic parameters of the friction model are identified by the intelligent differential evolution algorithm. Based on the feedback speed information and the obtained friction model, the equivalent friction compensation torque is treated as the input of the current loop to achieve stable low-speed operation of the platform. After friction compensation, the speed response error is reduced from ±0.1°/s to ±0.04°/s. The experimental results show that the proposed method in this paper is effective.