The electrical drive, to which the rigid or soft kite is coupled, is of pivotal importance since it controls the electromechanical energy conversion. The current trend of employing standard off-the-shelf three-phase drives is problematic because these are susceptible to common faults, such as partial or full inverter leg failure, which reduces not only the generated power up to 33%, but can also jeopardise the operation of the AWE system. The objective of this project is to employ six phase drives based on Interior Permanent Magnet Synchronous Motors (IPMSM) for enhanced fault tolerance and power-to-weight ratio. High fidelity mathematical models, controller design in the healthy/post-fault cases as well as encoderless control were considered in this study.