Patent ID: 7701101

Claim:
An alternator assembly which includes a rotor which carries a circular array of alternately polarized permanent magnets which establish an excitation field, and a stator with a plurality of individual stator windings thereon, one for each of a plurality of loads, the stator comprising N separate stator components, where N≧2 and 2 N is the number of loads, each stator component having a respective pair of stator windings wound thereon in a two-phase winding arrangement whereby the field induced in a respective stator component by current flow in one of the windings of the respective pair lags the field induced in the respective stator component by current flow in the other winding of the respective pair by 90° so that there is substantially no mutual inductance established between the stator windings wound on the respective stator component, wherein the N stator components are supported coaxially in a row, wherein the rotor includes (N+1) of the rotor components which each carry a circular array of permanent magnets on a face which faces an adjacent stator component, and wherein (N−1) rotor components are supported coaxially in a row for rotation one between a juxtaposed pair of stator components, each rotor component carrying a circular array of the permanent magnets on the radial face that faces an adjacent stator component.