Patent ID: 7545056

Claim:
A method of regulating operation of an electrical machine, the method involving a plurality of electric machines, each machine having a magnetic rotor, a stator and at least one stator winding, the winding associated with a primary magnetic circuit defined by the rotor and stator, the winding also associated with a secondary magnetic circuit defined in the stator, the secondary magnetic circuit remote from the first magnetic circuit and including a magnetically saturable portion, the method comprising the steps of: operating each machine to provide at least one of generated output electrical power in the winding and motive power as a result of current supplied to the winding; controllably varying a saturation level of a portion of the secondary magnetic circuit to thereby control operation of each machine; monitoring the output of each machine for at least one criterion indicative of a fault condition existing in a deficient machine resulting in an associated power decrease; controllably varying a saturation level of at least one non-deficient machine to compensate for said power decrease.