Electro-mechanical propulsion system

Claim 1

An Electro-Mechanical Propulsion Systems for a vehicle having a motive drive system, comprising: (a) A prime mover having a first rotor shaft; (b) An alternating voltage generator having a rotor and a stator; (c) Means for coupling the prime mover first rotor shaft to the alternating voltage generator; (d) A controlled rectifier, adaptable to accept the generator alternating voltage and a DC control voltage, wherein the generator alternating voltage is converted to a variable DC voltage that is proportional to the applied DC control voltage, the variable DC voltage appearing between an upper bus and a lower bus wherein the upper bus is always positive with respect to the lower bus; (e) An AC motor having a second rotor shaft and multiple input terminals for accepting motor drive signals of identical frequency and differing electrical phase, and whose second rotor shaft rotational rate is a function of the frequency of the AC motor drive signals; (f) Means for coupling the second rotor shaft to the vehicle motive drive system; (g) A manually-operable switch to control the direction of rotation of the second rotor, adapted to produce a forward/reverse voltage; (h) Means for producing a speed control voltage for controlling the frequency and voltage of the motor drive signals; (i) Means for producing a torque control voltage for controlling the torque supplied to the AC motor; (j) Means for producing an acceleration control voltage for controlling the acceleration rate of the AC motor in response to a step change in the speed control voltage; (k) An analog control unit, operable to accept the speed control voltage, the torque control voltage, the acceleration control voltage, and the variable DC voltage generated by the controlled rectifier, wherein is generated a DC control voltage to be applied to the controlled rectifier that is a function of the speed control voltage, the torque control voltage and the variable DC voltage, and whose response rate is proportional to the acceleration control voltage, and wherein is also generated a frequency control voltage that is a function of the speed control voltage and whose response rate is proportional to the acceleration control voltage; (l) A polyphase AC signal generator, operable to accept the frequency control voltage, the forward/reverse voltage, and the variable DC voltage between upper bus and lower bus, wherein the variable DC voltage is converted to a plurality of AC motor drive signals whose frequency is proportional to the frequency control voltage, and the electrical phase difference between any adjacent motor drive signals is equal to 360 degrees divided by the number of motor drive signals, and the forward/reverse voltage is operable to change the phase relationship between adjacent motor drive signals to thereby reverse the rotation of the motor rotor; and (m) Means for generating a regulated voltage supply for the analog control unit and polyphase AC signal generator.