Abstract:

The enhancement in speed of Ethernet and as Ethernet based protocols are replacing the serial networks, we come to know that the industrial automation and process control technology has been gradually changing for some decades now. The emergence of digital fieldbus technology has enabled innovation and powerful devices with access to great information, greater accuracy and reliability, and lower wiring costs than previous analog current loop system and direct serial technologies. The design of Ethernet was made for office applications and as it is not deterministic (due to CSMA/CD, latency, queueing in switches, etc.), to fulfil the requirements of industrial automation and process control the concept of real-time industrial Ethernet was introduced to the market. POWERLINK is the most known of these real-time industrial Ethernet solutions used for master slave applications. openPOWERLINK is a software protocol based on standard Industrial Ethernet available on GitHub and source forge websites. This paper includes fixing of some issues or addition of new feature to openPOWERLINK stack. By this work, the customer can work more efficiently in this stack and for industrial automation technologies.


Keywords: POWERLINK, real-time industrial ethernet, GitHub, Source Forge.