Software PLC on EtherCAT – An Implementation Example

This research aims to establish a software Programmable Logic Controller (software PLC) solution on the EtherCAT fieldbus environment to comply with Microsoft Windows operating system as an industrial network backbone. Utilizing a built-up socket and its open architecture, the study develops the network backbone based on an underlying open-source code to provide an open and standardized reference architecture which IEC 61131-3 and EtherCAT specifications can be followed-up. A system was thus developed. With the developed system, the integrity of the development was tested using the ST language, which is a standard part defined in the international IEC 61131-3 specifications, to demonstrate that the software PLC concept based on EtherCAT can be realistically embedded finally. The successful embedding meets the standards of IEC 61131.