Establishing EtherCAT Communication between Industrial PC and Variable Frequency Drive

EtherCAT is an efficient and high speed Industrial Fieldbus Communication based on Ethernet. EtherCAT is developing at a rapid rate due to its unique features like high performance, flexible topology, optional cable redundancy, precise clock synchronization and low cost. The paper presents the establishment of EtherCAT communication between Programmable Logic Controller (PLC) and a Variable Frequency Drives (VFD), which replaces the current traditional MODBUS communication by EtherCAT technology to attain efficient industrial communication and networking. EtherCAT has single master and multiple slaves. The master can be implemented on any standard PC with the necessary software tool installation or an Industrial PC itself as a master, embedded with required driver during manufacturing. EtherCAT slave controller can be implemented on FPGA, ASIC or standard microcontroller with a EtherCAT Slave Controller (ESC) interface.