Aiming at the problem that track tracking accuracy of high clearance unmanned sprayer is reduced due to side slip during autonomous navigation, an adaptive control method based on four wheel independent drive (4WID) high clearance unmanned sprayer was proposed. Firstly, the kinematic model of 4WID high gap sprayer was established. Then, based on the kinematic geometric constraints and velocity constraints, two characterization parameters of side slip effect were introduced to construct the improved pose error model. Finally, combining parameter adaptation with backstepping control method, an adaptive control law was designed to estimate and compensate the unknown sideslip effect at the same time. Taking the typical U-shaped path of paddy field operation as an example, the simulation and experimental verification were carried out with and without sideslip respectively. The simulation results showed that the control algorithm can ensure high tracking accuracy when the sprayer was sideslip. The paddy field test showed that when the sprayer was operating at a normal speed of 3.6km/h, it was compared with the trajectory tracking control algorithm without sideslip. The absolute value of the lateral mean error of the track tracking was reduced to 0.041m and the standard error was reduced to 0.059m, the longitudinal mean absolute error was reduced to 0.018m and the standard error was reduced to 0.015m, the average absolute error of heading was reduced to 2.56°and the standard error was reduced to 3.57°.