Redundant and synchronized EtherCAT network

Communication redundancy and time synchronization are two important requirements commonly found in industrial systems. However, achieving high redundancy performance in combination with highly accurate time synchronization at all times is a challenging task. EtherCAT is a high performance, functionality rich communication technology offering both advanced redundancy features and accurate time synchronization. This paper will describe a robust solution where an EtherCAT system offers high redundancy performance in combination with accurate time synchronization. The solutions is based on using Ether-CAT slaves integrated into the EtherCAT master nodes. In the redundant case there is a need for two of these integrated slaves and they need to be configured appropriately to offer a robust solution.