# US 10,312,846 B2 · Pole-number-changing rotary electric machine and driving method for pole-number-changing rotary electric machine > Agents: this data is available as JSON from the patentgrep API and MCP server — see https://patentgrep.com/llms.txt - Number: US 10,312,846 B2 - Document ID: US10312846B2 - Status: Granted - Kind: B2 - Application number: 15/537,508 - Filed: 2016-01-14 - Published: 2017-12-21 - Granted: 2019-06-04 - Earliest claimed: 2015-01-16 - Assignees: Mitsubishi Electric Corporation - Applicants: Mitsubishi Electric Corporation - Inventors: Yuki Hidaka; Taiga Komatsu; Hideaki Arita; Akihiro Daikoku; Moriyuki Hazeyama - Web page: https://patentgrep.com/patent/US10312846B2 ## CPC - H02P 25/20: for pole-changing - H02K 3/12: arranged in slots - H02K 3/28: Layout of windings or of connections between windings (windings for pole-changing H02K17/06, H02K17/14, H02K19/12, H02K19/32) - H02K 17/14: having windings arranged for permitting pole-changing - H02P 25/22: Multiple windings; Windings for more than three phases - H02P 27/06: using DC to AC converters or inverters (H02P27/05 takes precedence) - H02K 3/51: applicable to rotors only - H02K 3/522: {for generally annular cores with salient poles} - H02K 11/028: Suppressors associated with the rotor - H02P: CONTROL OR REGULATION OF ELECTRIC MOTORS, ELECTRIC GENERATORS OR DYNAMO-ELECTRIC CONVERTERS; CONTROLLING TRANSFORMERS, REACTORS OR CHOKE COILS - H02K: DYNAMO-ELECTRIC MACHINES (dynamo-electric relays H01H53/00; conversion of DC or AC input power into surge output power {H03K3/53}) ## Abstract A pole-number-changing rotary electric machine includes: a rotary electric machine; an n-group inverter; and a control unit for controlling the n-group inverter, wherein the control unit controls current phases of a current flowing through stator coils such that a current phase degree of freedom, which is a number of current phases per pole pair controllable by the n-group inverter, is equal to a number of groups n×a number of phases m/2 at a time of high polarity driving and the number of groups n×the number of phases m at a time of low polarity driving, where the number of groups n is a multiple of 4 and the number of phases m is a natural number of 3 or more and relatively prime to the number of groups n. ## Claims ### Claim 1 A pole-number-changing rotary electric machine comprising: a rotary electric machine provided with a stator in which stator slots are arranged at regular intervals in a mechanical angle direction and a rotor rotated by magnetomotive forces generated by a current flowing through stator coils housed in the stator slots; an n-group inverter for supplying an m-phase current to the stator coils; and a controller for controlling the n-group inverter, each of the magnetomotive forces corresponding to the stator slots being arranged at regular intervals, and a number of poles in the pole-number-changing rotary electric machine being changed between a first number of poles and a second number of poles, wherein the second number of poles is smaller than the first number of poles, wherein the controller controls current phases of the current flowing through the stator coils such that a current phase degree of freedom, which is a number of current phases used in stator slots that correspond to one pole pair controllable by the n-group inverter, is equal to a number of groups n×a number of phases m/2 at a time of a first polarity driving corresponding to the first number of poles and is equal to a number of groups n×the number of phases m at a time of a second polarity driving corresponding to the second number of poles, where the number of groups n is 4 or a multiple of 4 and the number of phases m is 3 or a natural number greater than 3 and m and n are prime numbers relative to each other. ### Claim 2 (depends on 1) The pole-number-changing rotary electric machine according to claim 1, wherein the controller controls current phases of a current flowing through the stator coils such that a number of poles at the time of the first polarity driving is twice a number of poles at the time of the second polarity driving, and a number of different current phases used in the stator slots that corresponds to one pole pair is equal to a number of groups n×a number of phases m/2 at the time of the first polarity driving and the number of groups n×the number of phases m at the time of the second polarity driving. ### Claim 3 (depends on 1) The pole-number-changing rotary electric machine according to claim 1, wherein the controller controls current phases of a current flowing through the stator coils such that a number of poles at the time of the first polarity driving is twice a number of poles at the time of the second polarity driving, and a number of different current phases used in the stator slots that corresponds to one pole pair is the same at the time of the first polarity driving and at the time of the second polarity driving and equal to a number of groups n×a number of phases m/2. ### Claim 4 (depends on 1) The pole-number-changing rotary electric machine according to claim 1, wherein when a number of stator slots of the stator slots is set to ns, ns/(a number of groups n×a number of phases m) is a natural number. ### Claim 5 (depends on 4) The pole-number-changing rotary electric machine according to claim 4, wherein the number of groups is n=4 and the number of phases is m=3. ### Claim 6 (depends on 4) The pole-number-changing rotary electric machine according to claim 4, wherein the number of groups is n=4 and the number of phases is m=5. ### Claim 7 (depends on 4) The pole-number-changing rotary electric machine according to claim 4, wherein the number of groups is n=8 and the number of phases is m=3. ### Claim 8 (depends on 1) The pole-number-changing rotary electric machine according to claim 1, wherein the rotary electric machine is an induction machine. ### Claim 9 A driving method for a pole-number-changing rotary electric machine including a rotary electric machine provided with a stator in which stator slots are arranged at regular intervals in a mechanical angle direction and a rotor rotated by magnetomotive forces generated by a current flowing through stator coils housed in the stator slots, the driving method comprising: supplying, by an n-group inverter, an m-phase current to the stator coils; and controlling, by circuitry, the n-group inverter, each of the magnetomotive forces corresponding to the stator slots being arranged at regular intervals, and a number of poles in the pole-number-changing rotary electric machine being changed between a first number of poles and a second number of poles, wherein the second number of poles is smaller than the first number of poles; and performing, by the circuitry, current supply in which an m-phase current is supplied to the stator coils by the n-group inverter, and in the current supply: at the time of a polarity driving corresponding to the second number, current phases of the current flowing through the stator coils are controlled such that a current phase degree of freedom, which is a number of current phases used in stator slots that correspond to one pole pair controllable by the n-group inverter, is equal to a number of groups n×a number of phases m, where the number of groups n is 4 or a multiple of 4 and the number of phases m is 3 or a natural number greater than 3 and m and n are prime numbers relative to each other, and at the time of a polarity driving corresponding to the first number, the current phases of the current flowing into the stator coils are changed such that the current phase degree of freedom is equal to the number of groups n×the number of phases m/2. ### Claim 10 A pole-number-changing rotary electric machine comprising: a rotary electric machine provided with a stator in which stator slots are arranged at regular intervals in a mechanical angle direction and a rotor rotated by magnetomotive forces generated by a current flowing through stator coils housed in the stator slots; an n-group inverter configured to supply an m-phase current to the stator coils; and circuitry configured to control the n-group inverter, each of the magnetomotive forces corresponding to the stator slots being arranged at regular intervals, and a number of poles in the pole-number-changing rotary electric machine being changed between a first number of poles and a second number of poles, wherein the second number of poles is smaller than the first number of poles, wherein the circuitry controls current phases of the current flowing through the stator coils such that a current phase degree of freedom, which is a number of current phases used in stator slots that correspond to one pole pair controllable by the n-group inverter, is equal to a number of groups n×a number of phases m/2 at a time of a polarity driving corresponding to the first number and is equal to a number of groups n×the number of phases m at a time of a polarity driving corresponding to the second number, where the number of groups n is 4 or a multiple of 4 and the number of phases m is 3 or a natural number greater than 3 and m and n are prime numbers relative to each other.