Beckhoff Automation is celebrating 20 years of EtherCAT, the industrial Ethernet system introduced by the company in 2003. EtherCAT remains an open International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) standard and was developed to use standard Ethernet interfaces with PC-based control.
Beckhoff’s PC-based control technology harnesses the high computing power of a PC directly on the machine. EtherCAT was developed to use the high performance of standard Ethernet interfaces on PCs, while reducing the complexity of standard TCP/IP Ethernet communications to maximize bandwidth utilization and performance.
Beckhoff said EtherCAT’s reliability and continuous technical advancements have kept it fast, flexible and open for two decades. Many industries, such as packaging, assembly and entertainment rely on EtherCAT, and Beckhoff said EtherCAT also supports emerging applications in mobile robotics, intralogistics, electric vehicle manufacturing, aerospace, scientific research and semiconductor manufacturing.
"EtherCAT has played a pivotal role in driving forward the world's leading automation applications through its high speed, determinism and flexible topology," said Daymon Thompson, director of product management at Beckhoff USA. "From large scale applications such as giant telescopes with thousands of axes of motion to small IoT data collection devices and everything in between, EtherCAT has enabled remarkable technological achievements."
EtherCAT combines the standard Ethernet protocol with the reliability, performance and stability required for industrial communication. Beckhoff said it advantages include:
• Exceptional performance: With EtherCAT, fast communication and nanosecond synchronization via distributed clocks optimize application efficiency while reducing CPU loads by up to 30%.
• Flexible topology: Essentially any topology—tree, star, drop, line or circle, or any combination of these—is possible with a nearly unlimited number of nodes and Hot Connect functionality.
• Simple and robust: Automatic addressing of nodes, comprehensive and highly localized diagnostics, superior noise immunity and high bandwidth all streamline network implementation and maintenance.
• Integrated safety: Available since 2005, Fail Safe over EtherCAT (FSoE) offers TÜV-certified functional safety up to SIL 3 in both centralized and decentralized control systems.
• Affordability: No switches are necessary, masters only need an Ethernet port, and sub-devices can use a variety of ESC chips – all of which keep expenses near or less than legacy fieldbus costs.
• Largest variety of vendors and devices: The EtherCAT Technology Group (ETG) is the world’s largest industrial Ethernet organization with over 7,100 member companies and over 3,000 officially registered vendors, with Beckhoff offering the most comprehensive portfolio of EtherCAT devices.
“As an all-purpose industrial network, EtherCAT has become a foundational technology for all areas of modern industrial automation,” said Azad Jafari, I/O product manager at Beckhoff USA. “So far, this includes drive technology, mechatronics, machine safety, condition monitoring, advanced measurement technology and machine vision, among others. And as emerging concepts break through, they will continue to find the powerful and flexible communication technology they need in EtherCAT.”
