POWERLINK Information
TR-Electronic GmbH 2018, All Rights Reserved
Printed in the Federal Republic of Germany
Page 54 of 84
TR - ELA - BA - DGB - 0028 - 00
06/21/2018
3.2 Protocol
The POWERLINK protocol, optimized for process data, is transported directly in the
Ethernet II frame via a special EtherType. The acyclic communication, the
transportation of IP based protocols, such as UDP etc., uses the EtherType
0x0800
.
POWERLINK Real-Time-Frames use the EtherType
0x88AB
.
On the basis of the EtherType the POWERLINK specific data are interpreted different.
The structure and meaning of the acyclic parameter communication is predetermined
by the device profile
"CANopen Device Profile for Encoder CiA DS-406"
.
UDP/IP datagram’s are also supported. This means that the Managing Node and the
Controlled Nodes can be located in different subnets. Thus communication across
routers into other subnets is possible.
POWERLINK exclusively uses standard frames in accordance with IEEE802.3.
POWERLINK frames can be sent by any Ethernet controller (master). Also standard
tools (e.g. monitor) can be used.
Fi
g
ure 1: Ethernet frame structure
