EtherCAT Technology Group celebrates 20 years

November 2023 News

The 20-year milestones of EtherCAT and EtherCAT Technology Group (ETG) are a reason to celebrate. To mark the occasion, Beckhoff invited guests to a gala dinner at the Grand Hotel Kaiserhof Victoria in Bad Kissingen. The ETG board of directors, the Beckhoff team working at the ETG headquarters in Nuremberg, EtherCAT developers from the very beginning, and members of the ETG technical and marketing committees were among those who have made a decisive contribution to the success of EtherCAT.

In his welcoming speech, Hans Beckhoff, managing director of Beckhoff Automation, highlighted the role of the original development team, which has achieved extraordinary results. He then congratulated the ETG team on their success and thanked them for their energetic work over the past 20 years.

Executive director, Martin Rostan then looked back on 20 years of EtherCAT and ETG in his tongue-in-cheek keynote speech ‘From fast lightbus to EtherCAT’. He described how the ETG started with 33 founding members, growing to the world’s largest fieldbus organisation with almost 400 member companies from 73 countries, and from zero to 60 million EtherCAT devices. Along the way there were 213 ETG trade fair booths, 175 roadshows in 51 countries, 59 plugfests, and countless working groups and standardisation meetings. The diverse work of the ETG teams contributed numerous entertaining photos, anecdotes and remarkable experiences.

Rostan also thanked the Beckhoff developers for preparing what is recognised as the best fieldbus technology; the ETG team for 20 years of dedicated collaboration; the ETG board and committee members for helping to shape the organisation and the technology; and ETG honorary member, Hans Beckhoff for opening up EtherCAT and supporting the ETG.

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