Patent ID: 7554302

Claim:
A system for providing constant-frequency, electrical output from a variable-speed mechanical input, the system comprising: at least one mechanical-to-electrical energy converter, each of said at least one mechanical-to-electrical energy converter including: a first wound-rotor induction machine having a rotor assembly and a stator assembly, the rotor assembly including a plurality of rotor windings for inducing a stator current in a plurality of stator windings disposed on the stator assembly, the rotor assembly being mechanically-coupled to a shaft driven by a mechanical power delivering device; a first power converter having an input electrically-coupled to said stator windings and an output electrically-coupled to a first DC load bus; a second power converter having an input electrically-coupled to said rotor windings and an output electrically-coupled to a second DC load bus; and a controller operative to control at least one of said first and second power converters to regulate the DC load bus voltage on the associated DC load bus, wherein the controller includes a plurality of comparators and said controller is operative, using said plurality of comparators to compare stator-current magnitude data, stator-current phase data, and measured stator-current data to reference data, to control at least one of the first and the second power converters.