Although conventional fieldbus systems (PROFIBUS, CANopen, DeviceNet, SERCOS, etc.) provide more or less fast and safe data transfer, they are inferior to the EtherCAT technology in special considerations such as speed, overall productivity, reliability and real-time transmission. EtherCAT is a good chance to eliminate the bottlenecks of conventional fieldbus systems allowing direct data exchange with the application by using shared memory without additional hardware since standard network adapters are enough.
EtherCAT (Ethernet for Control Automation technology) is a hard-real-time technology that realizes the specific transfer of data. It offers real-time performance and is aimed to maximize the utilization of high-speed full-duplex Ethernet data transfer through twisted pair or fiber optic cable for industrial process control needs.
