Pantographs are the connecting element between the train and the current-carrying contact wire and are so far the limiting factor in the attempt of reaching higher speeds in the railway industry. Their task is to establish a reliable permanent connection between the train and the contact wire while keeping the needed contact force as low as possible to minimise the wear of each element. Hence, scientific research has increasingly focused on pantographs in the last years. The aim of this work is to obtain a model of a pantograph with physical interpretable parameters. This approach allows to study the influence of each parameter on the performance of the pantograph and furthermore leads to interpretable model states. Additionally, the testbed connection as well as the measurement data acquisition was also part of this work. Moreover, video recordings of each test run were made from which the position of different pantograph parts could be extracted. The so obtained measurement data was then used in the parameter estimation process. The obtained nonlinear model was linearised and compared to other model structures appearing in the literature. Finally, the topic of Design of Experiment is introduced, allowing to estimate the model parameters as accurately as possible.