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EtherCAT
®
is registered trademark and patented technology, licensed by
Beckhoff Automation GmbH, Germany.
For more detailed information about EtherCAT
®
see
11.10.1
EtherCAT
®
generic principles
The EtherCAT
®
functional principle is “Ethernet on the fly”. The EtherCAT
®
master sends out an Ethernet frame on the EtherCAT
®
fieldbus wire. This frame
passes through all connected slave devices. The last slave in the chain returns
the frame to the master by sending it back to the second last slave and so on.
So, the frame passes each slave twice before returning to the master. This
principle defines a control loop, where the master provides output values
responding to received input values. For an example EtherCAT
®
topology see
Master
EtherCAT Segment
Cable
Route EtherCAT frame travels
Figure 11.61:
Example EtherCAT
®
Topology
GEN3t
228
I3995-3.1 en HBM: public