EtherCAT based robot modular joint controller

Abstract

EtherCAT technology is originally developed by Beckhoff. EtherCAT is by and large the fastest industrial Ethernet technology, and it also synchronizes with nanosecond accuracy. EtherCAT sets new standards for real-time performance and topology flexibility. In this paper, the development of EtherCAT based robot modular joint controller is introduced. This paper describes the hardware and software design, such as PDI design, Slave Stack Code, CiA402 Driver Profile, device description file design and so on. At last, experiments are implemented to test the controller.