This paper presents the synchronous vibration control of a rotor system using an active air bearing(AAB). In order to suppress the synchronous vibration, it is necessary to actively control the air film pressure or the air film thickness. In this study, active pads are used to control the air film thickness. Active pads are supported by pivots containing piezoelectric actuators and their radial position can be actively controlled by applying voltage to the actuators. Thus, disturbances, i. e. various kinds of external force can cause shaft vibration as well as change of the air film thickness. The dynamic behavior of a rotary system supported by two tilting-pad gas bearings and its active stabilization using the tilting-pads as actuators are investigated numerically. The $mu$ synthesis are applied to the AAB system with three pads, two of which contain piezoelectric actuators. To test the validity of the theoretical method, the performance of this control method is evaluated through experiments. The experimental results also show the effectiveness of the control system for suppressing the unbalanced response of the rigid modes.