An objection was raised by Indian patent office and the following was provided to the patent agent.
3025/CHE/2011 uses controlled rectifier element to limit the amount of power that is getting transmitted to the regulator side.
Useful in situation where
The battery voltage is low, and so the charging current from the RR unit is too high. If not controlled, the high load current imparts high mechanical load on engine. This results in reduced mechanical power transmission to the wheels. By having a control on the rectification phase, the amount of power that is getting transferred can be controlled, while maintaining a reasonable load on the engine, so that it does not affect the fuel efficiency or the vehicle performance.
D1: CN101958674A
D1 talks about motor (to be used as starter motor, and a generator) construction so that the winding terminals are not joined together to form a star or delta winding configuration, like in any standard motor, but the other ends are brought out. Effectively, this motor + controller configuration has a switching element array(made of switches such as igbts, mosfets, bjts, etc.), motor with 6 wires out (for a 3 phase motor, 2 wires for each phase), and a rectification unit (made of diodes). Constructional details of this patent are different from 3025/CHE/2011.
D2: JP2009011016A
D2 is very close to 3025/CHE/2011. Only different is that D2 talks about a 3-phase system, while 3025/CHE/2011 talks about 1-phase system. D2 uses angular position sensor (to sense rotational speed and acceleration and uses a table data to control the firing of the switches in the rectifier bridge) to control the rectifier, while 3025/CHE/2011 uses current sensor to sense the load and control the rectifier. D2 also uses the current sensors to sense the actual generated current, and compares with the target current at the output, and the switching angles are modified suitably (para 13 of D2’s complete spec document). D2 mentions all the elements of 3025/CHE/2011.
D3: US 6637570 B1
D3 talks about a parallel hybrid IC-engine-motor combination where the motor assists the IC engine to reduce the emissions. This process and construction is different from the rectification as discussed in 3025/CHE/2011.