Due to the inherent nonlinear nature of Electro-rheological (ER) fluid dampers, one of the challenging aspects for utilizing these devices to achieve high system performance is the development of accurate models and control algorithms that can take advantage of their unique characteristics. In this paper, the nonlinear damping force model is made to identify the properties of the ER damper using higher order spectrum. The higher order spectral analysis is used to investigate the nonlinear frequency coupling phenomena with the damping force signal according to the sinusoidal excitation of the damper. Also, this paper presents an inverse model of the ER damper, i.e., the model can predict the required voltage so that the ER damper can produce the desired force for the requirement of vibration control of vehicle suspension systems. The inverse model is constructed by using a multi-layer perceptron neural network. A quarter-car suspension model is considered in this paper for analysis and simulation. Simulation results show that the proposed inverse model of ER damper can obtain control voltage of ER damper for required damping force.