A Hardware Independent Real-time Ethernet for Motion Control Systems

摘要

Ethernet for Manufacture Automation Control (EtherMAC) is a new kind of real-time Ethernet used in motion control systems. It adopts a line topology with a standard industrial computer based master node and field-programmable-gate-array based slave nodes. EtherMAC employs one slave node to manage cycle communication and clock synchronization, so the real-time demand for its master node can be greatly reduced and dedicated hardware is no longer mandatory. Its distributed clock compensation mechanism can get synchronization accuracy in nanosecond order. The advantages of industrial computer and field programmable-gate-array are combined with EtherMAC, so that high control performance can be achieved.