Stator wound resolver with staggered rotor

A stator wound resolver comprising:

• a stator and a rotor aligned on an axis;
• said stator having a plurality of teeth with input and output windings disposed on a number of said teeth, said input and output windings exhibiting a mutual inductance characteristic that varies as a function of position of the rotor about said axis;
• said input winding being connectable to a drive signal and said output windings being disposed on said teeth such that output signals induced in said output windings correspond to position of the rotor;
• said rotor being attachable to a position changing means, said rotor comprising at least two axially spaced rotor pieces that are offset from each other by a stagger angle;
• said stagger angle being based on at least two magnitude measurements of mutual inductance harmonic distortion, each said measurement being taken using a different stagger angle, wherein said rotor pieces are offset at an optimum stagger angle at which two components of mutual inductance harmonic distortion substantially cancel each other to reduce distortion in the resolver output signals.