Patent ID: 8172057

Claim:
For use 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 said clutch member is 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 is disengaged from 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 arranged for receiving an external magnetic biasing to selectively move the clutch member between the first lateral position and the second lateral position; and an actuator that is configured 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 responsive to a first drive signal to continuously magnetically bias the clutch member into said first lateral position, and for producing a second magnetic field configuration responsive to a second drive signal that causes said clutch-drive permanent magnet to move said clutch member away from the first lateral position to continuously magnetically bias the clutch member into said second lateral position and to cooperate with the clutch drive permanent magnet for maintaining each of the first operational mode and the second operational mode as a current operational mode in an absence of the first and second drive signals.