A design of realtime communication based on EtherCAT in industrial robot control system based on LinuxCNC

Abstract

In the control system of a six-axis industrial robot, a realtime and fast communication solution is needed to improve the kinematic accuracy of end effector. This paper designs a communication solution based on the CANopen over EtherCAT protocol, which supports PDO and SDO communication object in object dictionary. The robot controller is modified from LinuxCNC, and the communication solution is realized as a realtime component of HAL. This paper uses the communication solution to transfer the value of absolute encoder between PC and servo motor, and it can work stably and effectively.