EtherCAT^® basics

EtherCAT^® is an Ethernet based fieldbus system. Process data between master and connected slaves is exchanged clock-synchronously in one cycle. The slaves retrieve their data while at the same time inserting input data into the telegram. This means the master receives the input data of the slaves within one cycle.

This chapter explains the most important EtherCAT^® terms.

• Description files
• Service commands
• EtherCAT® State Machine (ESM)
• Cyclic process data exchange
• Acyclic process data exchange
• Configuring and addressing the network
• Explicit device identification
• Optional slaves
• Distributed clocks (DC)
• EtherCAT® feature packs