ETFA 2008 | Conference Paper: A performance analysis of EtherCAT and PROFINET IRT

Title

A performance analysis of EtherCAT and PROFINET IRT

Author

Gunnar Prytz (ABB AS Corporate Research Center, Norway)

Conference

13th IEEE International Conference of Emerging Technologies and Factory Automation (ETFA),
Hamburg, Germany, on September 15-18, 2008

Abstract

Ethernet is emerging as the preferred industrial communication platform upon which a multitude of protocols and solutions specially targeted at industrial communication requirements have been developed. This paper concentrates on a set of protocols popularly referred to as the Real-time Ethernet protocols and analyses two key technologies, namely PROFINET IRT and EtherCAT. The real-time performance characteristics of PROFINET IRT and EtherCAT is compared by looking into what factors affect their performance in a set of realistic scenarios. The goal is to provide a scientifically solid study on this subject where many presentations are seriously flawed by basic mistakes, misunderstandings or biased views. The detailed analysis presented here shows that EtherCAT has a performance advantage over PROFINET IRT and the reasons for this are discussed.

  Description Language Type Date Size Ver. Status
members-no ETFA 2008: A performance analysis of EtherCAT and PROFINET IRT EN PDF Sep 22, 2008 1,73 MB