Patent 7644581 was granted and assigned to Toyota on January, 2010 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
A stirling engine includes a flow path which communicates a working space of the stirling engine and a crankcase of the stirling engine. An output of the stirling engine is controlled so that the output lowers when a pressure inside the working space is higher than a pressure in the crankcase, with a transfer of a fluid in the working space to the crankcase via the flow path thereby causing a decrease in the pressure of the working space.