The working conditions of belt conveyors were analyzed and the working principle of the hydraulic takeup device was introduced. The AMESim model of the hydraulic takeup device was built and a PI controller was applied. Simulation results show that a large overshoot is caused due to the saturation of PI controller at the state of pressure rise phase and a PI controller with large coefficients has better performance than small coefficients at the state of pressure drop phase and tail car rise phase. Based on the analysis, a novel control strategy was presented in which, a variable structure control strategy was applied during the pressure rise state and a PI controller with large coefficients was used at the state of pressure drop and tail car rise state. Simulation results show the presented strategy has better instantaneous and stable performance and is not disturbed by the tail car rise. 