Patent ID: 7954614

Claim:
In a drive train at least including an input shaft and an output shaft, a clutch arrangement comprising: a clutch member that is configured to rotate about an axis of rotation; a clutch shaft supporting said clutch member for rotation about said axis of rotation and having a pair of opposing ends and said clutch shaft further supported for lateral movement along said axis of rotation such that the clutch member cooperates with said drive train at a first lateral position in a first operational mode to cause the output shaft to turn responsive to rotation of the input shaft and the clutch member disengages said drive train at a second lateral position in a second operational mode to disengage the output shaft from rotation of the input shaft; a clutch-drive permanent magnet that is mounted on one of said opposing ends of said clutch shaft for rotation in unison with the clutch shaft and arranged for applying a magnetic biasing force along the axis of rotation to move the clutch member between the first lateral position and the second lateral position and said clutch-drive permanent magnet includes a north pole and a south pole that are arranged such that a projection of the north and south poles onto said axis of rotation results in an offset along said axis between projected north and south pole positions; and a field generating arrangement for producing a first magnetic field configuration that causes said clutch-drive permanent magnet to move said clutch shaft and, thereby, said clutch member away from the second lateral position to bias the clutch member into said first lateral position, and for producing a second magnetic field configuration that causes said clutch-drive permanent magnet to move said clutch member away from the first lateral position to bias the clutch member into said second lateral position.