This paper presents the controllability properties of an underactuated 3R manipulator and the application of a discontinuous point-to-point control law for a three-degree-of-freedom (DOF) PPR manipulator. In the first half we present a controllability analysis at various actuator configurations of the manipulator. A novel contribution is that we use a single coordinate system to analyse the controllability at all the three possible configurations. In the second half we present a discontinuous feedback control law for point-to-point control of a 3 DOF PPR underactuated manipulator moving in a horizontal plane. Simulation results are presented that demonstrate the effectiveness of the controller. © 2005 Taylor & Francis Ltd.