Positioning and tracking control systems are an important component of autonomous robot applications. This paper presents the design method of tracking control systems based on H1 preview control where the present and future desired positions of the robot are used to determine the control actions to be applied so that the robot describes the desired trajectory as close as possible. The performance improvements achieved with H1 preview control have been examined in the frequency and time domains for different types of reference signals when applied to a one-dimensional positioning system. It was found that preview control improves the tracking performance by improving the phase response of the tracking system.