Design of EtherCAT Slave Controller using CIFX 90E- RE for HMI Display

Abstract

EtherCAT has distinct advantages in terms of speed, topology flexibility, synchronisation accuracy, and communication efficiency. A single board computer from Advantech and Hilscher CIFX 90E-RE are utilized to create a new slave system to ensure a high speed and reliable communication for HMI displays. The design process including hardware and software are all scrutinized. The communication between the master and slave is fast with better synchronization among the slaves, and the system operates reliably under the EtherCAT protocol, after passing through multiple test cases.