Abstract: Because of the shortage of large starting current and low starting torque, the starting performance of brushless doubly-fed machine（BDFM） cannot meet the requirements of industrial application. In order to solve this problem, a novel BDFM designed by the theory of composite coil group and changing-pole method was put forward, and the design example was analyzed in detail according to the prototype. The proposed rotor structure can increase the converted resistance of windings, thus to reduce the starting current and increase the starting torque effectively. With the comparison between composite coil rotor structure and common coil rotor structure, the modeling and simulation part illustrated the starting performance of BDFM with asynchronous starting mode, the starting current, starting torque and saturation were selected as comparing parameters. The results of the prototype test shows that the novel BDFM with composite coil group structure has the characteristics of decreasing starting current and increasing starting torque, which can effectively improve the starting performance.