Abstract
The suspension system of cars is composed of dampers and springs, which usually have nonlinear characteristics. The nonlinear characteristics make the differences in the results of analytical models and experiments. In this study, the nonlinear system identification method which does not assume a special form for nonlinear dynamic systems and minimize the error by calculating the error reduction ratio is devised to estimate the nonlinear parameters of the suspension system of an EF-SONATA car from the field running test data. The results show that the spring has a cubic nonlinear term and the damper has a coupled nonlinear term. Also, the numerical results with the estimated nonlinear parameters agree well with the field test data for the different running speeds.