This paper proposes a real-time , robust and efficient 3D model-based tracking algorithm for a monocular vision system. Non-linear pose computation is formulated by means of a virtual visual servoing approach. In this context, the derivation of point-to-curves interaction matrices are given for different features. A local moving edges tracker is used in order to provide real-time tracking of points normal to the object contours. Robustness is obtained by integrating a M-estimator into the visual control law via an iteratively re-weighted least squares implementation. The method presented in this paper has been validated on several complex image sequences including outdoor environments. Furthermore, it is verified with visual servoing as well as augmented reality applications. Results show the method to be robust to occlusion, changes in illumination and miss-tracking