Safety-over-EtherCAT

For the realisation of safe data transfer for Ethercat, the protocol Safety-over-Ethercat has been disclosed within the EtherCcat Technology Group (ETG). The protocol fulfils SIL 3 of IEC 61508 and enables the transfer of secure and unsecured information in a communication system. It does not cause and restrictions with regard to the transfer speed and cycle time. The test basis in the current version [GSET 26] forms the basis for the international standard preIEC 61784-3. In this standard the following error assumptions for such a network are made: falsification, repetition, exchange, loss, delay, insertion, masquerade and incorrect addressing of messages. All these errors must be managed by a safety protocol by the use of appropriate measures, i.e. they must be detected according to the required security category.