Patent ID: 8618776

Claim:
A power generator comprising: at least two-phase armature windings; a switching unit including, for each of the at least two-phase armature windings, a pair of a high-side switching element with a first diode parallely connected thereto and a second low-side switching element with a second diode parallely connected thereto, the switching unit being configured to rectify, through at least one of the high-side switching element, the first diode, the second low-side switching element, and the second diode, a voltage induced in each of the at least two-phase armature windings; a zero-cross detector that detects a point of time when a phase current based on the voltage induced in each of the at least two-phase armature windings is reversed in direction as a zero-cross point of the phase current; and a determiner that determines an off timing of at least one of the high-side switching element and the low-side switching element for each of the at least two-phase armature windings relative to the zero-cross point detected by the zero-cross detector.