Research Of Real-time Ethernet Protocol EtherCAT

This article mainly introduces a new real-time Ethernet technology-EtherCAT protocol, which is good at real-time application.Fieldbuses have become an integrated component of automation technology. They have been tried and tested and are now widely established. While the performance of controller CPUs - particularly for IPCs - is increasing rapidly, conventional fieldbus systems tend to represent "bottlenecks" that limit the performance control systems can achieve. Ethernet, as a public and compatible network technology, now is used more and more in the automation technology areas. However it can not meet the real-time requirement of automation control technology so that it is needed to be improved. EtherCAT is one of the approaches that try and provide real-time capability for EthernetEtherCAT technology overcomes these inherent limitations of other Ethernet solutions: The Ethernet packet is no longer received then interpreted and process data then copied at every device. The EtherCAT slave devices read the data addressed to them while the frame passes through the node. Similarly, input data is inserted while the telegram passes through. The fframes are only delayed by a few nanoseconds.This article mainly introduces the EtherCAT protocol’s framework, master structure, slave structure and does some simulation of them .Found that the EtherCAT really have good capability of data process and can provide the real-time capability. It is good for learn and use.