At the last Technology Evening, Kenneth McPherson, managing director Beckhoff Automation South Africa, presented on EtherCAT. EtherCAT, which stands for Ethernet for Control Automation Technology, is an open, real-time industrial Ethernet technology, invented by Beckhoff Automation.
Mike Banda (right) thanks Kenneth McPherson after the presentation.
The protocol is standardised in IEC 61158 and is suitable for both ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ real-time computing requirements in automation technology.
Generally a bus system is one of the core components of the control system architecture. It helps define the system performance, determines the choice of suppliers, and subsequently the overall cost of the control system, amongst others.
The three main performance challenges of any real-time communication are bandwidth utilisation, stack delays and switch delays. Thanks to EtherCAT’s technology performance breakthrough, these limitations are all resolved. With EtherCAT being the fastest industrial Ethernet technology available, and the largest industrial Ethernet organisation in the world, it becomes the engineer’s choice when it comes to selecting the right bus technology.
EtherCAT provides competitive advantages such as precision manufacturing, throughput and efficiency, with its added benefits of being low cost, easy to use, truly open, reliable and stable. Topics covered by Kenneth included:
• Enabling machine builders with EtherCAT.
• True topology flexibility.
• Comprehensive information for the operator.
• Supplier variety with EtherCAT.
• EtherCAT I/O vendors.
• Safety over EtherCAT.
• EtherCAT, Industrie 4.0 and the IIoT.
• Success stories.
The branch thanks Kenneth for his informative presentation.
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