Model Predictive Control (MPC) schemes are now widely used in process industries for the control of key unit operations. In this paper, a state estimation based model predictive controller for nonlinear system has been proposed. The model predictive controller is designed by considering a state space model and an extended Kalman filter to predict the mture behaviour of the system. The efficacy of the proposed MPC scheme has been demonstrated by conducting simulation studies on a two tank interacting system, a MIMO system. The analysis of the extensive dynamic simulation studies revealed that, the MPC scheme formulated produces satisfactory performance for servo operation. © 2013 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.