Hi!
We are currently working on a project where we want to use EtherCAT as a communication protocol between a central system (master) and several nodes (slaves). We want these slaves to have the following:
- GPIO for sensors
- Local processing (microprocessor ~200MHz+)
- Programmable (e.g. through USB)
- EtherCAT connection
We've looked a lot at off-the-shelf solutions and came to several EtherCAT modules which can handle the communication, such as the EasyCAT PRO, Anybus M40 and BECKHOFF F1111. We could connect these modules to an off-the-shelf microprocessor (e.g. Beaglebone).
However, we are also looking into an integrated, more powerful solution because we do not believe this can handle everything we want to do. The TI AM3359 ICE suits our purposes and we have bought and tested it. However we were wondering if there are smaller, off-the-shelf solutions, since this one has a lot of stuff that we do not need (e.g. screen and CAN connection) which makes it big, and it requires making our own PCB.
This is therefore my question. Do you guys know of any off-the-shelf EtherCAT slave sensor node that can facilitate our needs and nothing more? We have been looking a lot but cannot find anything that can do just what we need.
