The Powerlink of Internet Of Things
The office IT network is built on Ethernet and has access to the internet, cloud etc. To access the field information from the board the field level communication also needs to be based on Ethernet. This enables smooth transition of data without the use of gateways. But using standard Ethernet in the field is not advisable as it is prone to the Carrier Sense Multiple Access with collision detection mechanisms (CSMA/CD). In the automation world the machines and processes demand a real time deterministic communication. “Combining the needs of the industry and demands of the machines and processes we come to a conclusion that the automation network should be open source with standard interfaces and having a deterministic system performance” quotes Bhagath Karunakaran, “Ethernet POWERLINK satisfies all these requirements. It is completely open source and truly hardware and software independent. It couples benefits of standard Ethernet interfaces complying with the IEEE 802.3 as in internet of things and the determinism and availability needs of the industrial IOT.”
Ethernet POWERLINK provides determinism down to 100µs. Looking at the software platforms, its implementation can be over Windows, Linux, VXWorks, QNX, and any other operating system or without an operating system. It is also hardware independent with implementation possibilities right from micro-controller, micro-processor, ARM, FPGA, PCI cards, and PCs. The complete source code is available open source, free of cost and is certified and managed by the Ethernet POWERLINK Standardization Group which is a consortium of over 3200 members and users. It equips the user to have a complete choice of topology for his machine and process viz. line, star, tree and ring or a combination of all. Read more…