Electric drive system with electric machine having stationary rotor power transfer

A vehicle comprising:

• an electric drive system having an electric machine with a stator assembly and a rotor assembly, the stator assembly having a plurality of multi-phase stator windings, including a first stator winding and a second stator winding;
• a first inverter adapted to feed the first stator winding;
• a second inverter adapted to feed the second stator winding;
• wherein the rotor assembly has multi-phase rotor windings, including a first phase coil and a second phase coil defining respective currents forming a combined rotating current vector, the respective currents being 90 electrical degrees apart;
• a plurality of circuit legs operatively connected to the multi-phase rotor windings, each of the circuit legs having a respective first switch and a respective second switch;
• a controller having a processor and a tangible, non-transitory memory on which instructions are recorded, the controller being adapted to modulate a phase and an amplitude of the combined rotating current vector through controlling a state of the respective first switch and the respective second switch;
• wherein the electric machine being configured such that power transfer between the first stator winding and the second stator winding is achieved when the rotor assembly is stationary, by generating a rotor magnetic field that is synchronized with a stator magnetic field;
• and
• wherein the multi-phase rotor windings are excited with alternating current (AC) and a respective frequency of an AC rotor current is synchronized with the respective frequency of an AC stator current, thereby maintaining synchronization between the stator magnetic field and the rotating rotor magnetic field for power transfer without spinning the rotor assembly.