A Brushless Permanent Magnet Machine With Integrated Differential

Road vehicles are equipped with at least one differential which enables torque to be transmitted to the driving wheels while still being able to rotate at different speeds. The paper presents a brushless permanent magnet machine with integrated differential, where the torque is transmitted to the wheels/axles through two permanent magnet eddy current couplings. Simulation studies have shown that such differential would exhibit the characteristics of limited-slip mechanical differential and the permanent magnet eddy current couplings can transmit the torque of the traction machine with efficiencies in excess of 99%.