Magnetic Bearing Systems have been receiving a great deal of research attention for the past decades. Its inherent nonlinearity and open-loop instability are challenges for controller design. This thesis investigates and designs model predictive control strategy for an experimental Active Magnetic Bearing (AMB) laboratory system. A host-target development environment of real-time control system with hardware in the loop (HIL) is implemented. In this thesis, both continuous and discrete time model predictive controllers are studied. In the first stage, local MPC controllers are applied to control the AMB system; and in the second stage, concept of supervisory controller design is then investigated and implemented. Contributions of the thesis can be summarized as follows; 1. A Discrete time Model Predictive Controller has been developed and applied to the active magnetic bearing system. 2. A Continuous time Model Predictive Controller has been developed and applied to the active magnetic bearing system. 3. A frequency domain identification method using FSF has been applied to pursue model identification with respect to local MPC and magnetic bearing system. 4. A supervisory control strategy has been applied to pursue a two stages model predictive control of active magnetic bearing system.