In this paper, we develop a functional test model for magnetic bearing wheels. The functional test model is an electromagnetic levitation system that has three degree of freedom, which consists of one axial suspension from gravity and two axes gimbaling capability to small angels. A nonlinear controller with high-gain observers is proposed and the real-time experiment results show that the rotor is accurately levitated at the desired position and well-balanced, which is a suitable result for the potential use an magnetic bearing wheels. Also, the proposed scheme exhibits better performance when it is compared with the conventional PID control method.