This paper presents a real-time implementation of a genetic-based hybrid fuzzy-PID controller for industrial motor drives. Both the design of fuzzy-PID controller and its integration with the conventional PID in global control system to produce a hybrid design is demonstrated. A genetic optimization technique is used to determine the optimal values of the scaling factors of the output variables of the fuzzy-PID controller. The objective is to utilize the best attributes of the PID and fuzzy-PID controllers to provide a controller, which will produce better response than either the PID or the fuzzy-PID controller. The principle of the hybrid controller is to use a PID controller, which performs satisfactorily in most cases, while keeping in the background, a fuzzy-PID controller, which, is ready to take over the PID controller when severe disturbs occur. The hybrid controller is formulated and implemented in real-time, using the speed control of a brushless drive system as a testbed. The design, analysis, and implementation stages are carried out entirely using a dSPACE DS1104 digital signal processor (DSP)-based real-time data acquisition control (DAC) system, and MATLAB/Simulink environment. Experimental results show that the proposed fuzzyPID controller-based genetic optimization produces better control performance than the conventional PID controllers, particularly in handling nonlinearities and external disturbances