Patent ID: 7224144

Claim:
An electric power generation system for a vehicle comprising: a generator; a first control apparatus; and a second control apparatus that is electrically connected with said first control apparatus, wherein said first control apparatus includes: a switch configured to be selectively turned on and off so as to intermittently excite said generator; a regulator working to receive a target output signal, which has a specific frequency and is indicative of a target value of an output of said generator, and control on/off operation of said switch so as to bring the output of said generator into agreement with the target value; a fault condition detector working to detect a fault condition of said generator; and a Pulse-Width Modulated (PWM) signal generator working to generate and send to said second control apparatus a PWM signal that has a duty determined as a function of a duty of the on/off operation of said switch and a frequency determined based on whether the fault condition of said generator is detected by said fault condition detector, and wherein said second control apparatus includes a target output determiner working to receive the PWM signal sent from said PWM signal generator of said first control apparatus, determine the target value of the output of said generator based on the PWM signal, and generate and send to said regulator of said first control apparatus the target output signal.