LabVIEW EtherCAT Application Framework    

The EtherCAT Application Framework is an add-on library for the EtherCAT Library for LabVIEW, which simplifies the application development. The representation of the EtherCAT system is done with slave classes. This gives an easy to use and flexible to expand API for the control of different EtherCAT hardware.

The library offers a lot of benefits in applications, where multiple slaves with different tasks are used. The process data of all slaves is sent in one data array to the bus. This requires that the access to the data array is protected against race conditions, if handled in different processes / loops. This is done automatically by the framework library. Indexing the process data is easier, because it is done with relative offsets per slave and not absolute offsets. Furthermore, the incoming process data is preprocessed in a c-dll, which improves performance.

The framework builds the basis for a variety of specific driver libraries for EtherCAT hardware, like Beckhoff terminals. The driver libraries wrap the configuration calls and process data access in simple to use VIs.

Download Library Documentation

The following driver libraries are available:

Beckhoff

• EtherCAT Terminal Standard

  EL10xx, EL11xx, EL15xx, EL17xx, EL18xx

  EL20xx, EL2124, EL2502, EL 2521, EL2535

  EL26xx, EL27xx, EL28xx

  EL30xx, EL31xx, EL320x, EL3255, EL331x

  EL335x, EL360x, EL361x, EL3692, EL3681

  EL40xx, EL41xx

  Doc




• EtherCAT Terminal Power Measurement

  EL3403, EL3413, EL3433

  Doc




• EtherCAT Terminal Position Measurement

  EL500x, EL5021, EL5032, EL5101, EL5151

  Doc




• EtherCAT Terminal Motion

  EL7031, EL7041, EL7332, EL7342

  EL7201, EL7211, EL9576

  Doc




• EtherCAT Terminal Oversampling

  EL1262, EL2262

  EL3632, EL3702, EL3742, EL3773

  EL4712, EL4732

  Doc




• EtherCAT Terminal Communication Serial

  EL600x, EL602x

Kollmorgen

• AKD

  Servo drive controller of AKD series with EtherCAT interface

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