Jacqui Hanbury presents an introduction to IO-Link - a control network that doesn't replace existing fieldbus or industrial Ethernet networks, but sits below them at the sensor level. Whilst industrial Ethernet and fieldbus communications have allowed direct access and control of a modern factory there is still a missing 'last mile' to the sensors used on the machine where diagnostics and real time communications cannot go. It is for this reason that industry has defined the new IO-Link standard; a generic interface for connecting sensors and actuators to a master unit and allowing them to become accessible to higher level networks.
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