Electrorheological (ER) characteristics of ER fluids, composed of suspensions of semiconducting polyaniline and two different copolyaniline particles in silicone oil, were determined experimentally. Ionic sodium diphenylamine sulfonate and nonionic o-ethoxyaniline were used to synthesize copolyanilines, i.e. N-substituted copolyaniline and poly(aniline-co-o-ethoxyaniline), respectively. ER fluids composed of these three different polymers were compared with respect to their rheological properties under an applied electric field. It was found that ER fluids containing a copolymer with an ionic group exhibited the highest ER performance among polyaniline and its copolymer systems in a shear-rate region above 1 s(-1).