The paper proposes the application of fractional order controller in position tracking control of 2-link nonlinear robotic arm. The nonlinear system dynamics is linearized using inverse dynamics of the model and fractional order PID controller is designed to deal with remaining tracking errors. The optimal values of controller parameters are calculated using Nelder-Mead optimization technique based on desired design criteria. The objective function is designed using weighted sum approach on each performance specification based on transient domain parameters. It can be seen from simulation results that fractional order controller together with computed torque controller improved tracking performance of proposed system as compared to PID controller used in the outer loop. Moreover, the robustness of proposed scheme is checked by applying the disturbance signal at control input channels of 2-link nonlinear robotic arm links.