The paper presents the dynamic characteristics of a rotor-bearing system supported by an actively controlled hydrodynamic journal bearing. The proportional. derivative and integral controls are adopted for the control algorithm to control the hydrodynamic journal bearing with an axial groove. Also, the cavitation algorithm implementing the Jakobsson-Floberg-Olsson boundary condition is adopted to predict cavitation regions in the fluid film more accurately than conventional analysis, which uses the Reynolds condition. The speed at onset of instability of a rotor-bearing system is increased by both proportional and derivative control of the bearing. The proportional control increases the stability threshold without affecting the whirl ratio. However, for the derivative control of the bearing, increase of stability threshold speed is accompanied by a parallel reduction of the whirl ratio. The integral control has no effect on stability characteristics of hydrodynamic journal bearing. The PD-control is more effective than proportional or derivative control. Results 7how the active control of bearing can be adopted for the stability improvement of a rotor-bearing system.