CN206629078U - A kind of EtherCAT bus couplers - Google Patents

Abstract

The utility model discloses an EtherCAT bus coupler, which comprises an EtherCAT loop, a communication management control loop, and a gLink bus loop connected in sequence; wherein, the EtherCAT loop includes a slave station protocol controller, a network transformer, and an EtherCAT network interface; the communication management control loop It includes a communication management controller and an external memory; the gLink bus loop includes a gLink bus controller, a signal transceiver, and a gLink bus interface; the communication management controller is connected to the slave station protocol controller and the gLink bus controller respectively. It solves the interconnection problem of EtherCAT real-time industrial Ethernet and gLink bus communication; adopts ARM Cortex‑M3 embedded processor as the central processing unit, which is simple to implement, comprehensive in function, stable in operation and low in cost.

Description

A kind of EtherCAT bus coupler

technical field

The utility model belongs to the field of industrial automation, in particular to an EtherCAT bus coupler.

Background technique

With the development of industrial automation, the requirements for the industrial field system structure are becoming more and more simplified. Compared with the traditional discrete control method, the industrial fieldbus control method has superior control performance, simple and convenient use, and higher reliability, so it has been widely used in the control field. Rapid promotion and a large number of applications.

The diversity of fieldbus devices leads to different communication protocols, communication rates, and network topologies in a large-scale automation control system, which brings troubles to the information interaction between the central monitoring system and these field devices.

EtherCAT (Ethernet for Control Automation Technology) is an open real-time industrial Ethernet communication protocol originally developed by German Beckhoff Automation Co., Ltd. It is based on standard Ethernet technology and supports multiple device connection topologies. It has the advantages of simple configuration, high effective data rate, full duplex, large data transmission capacity, fast transmission speed, high clock synchronization, low cost, and good openness. It is a real-time, high-speed Ethernet communication protocol for industrial automation.

The gLink bus is a field bus technology designed by Googol Technology Co., Ltd. It has a large number of engineering applications in various automation industries. However, there are obvious differences between EtherCAT real-time industrial Ethernet and gLink bus in terms of physical interface and communication protocol. Therefore, when the gLink bus and the EtherCAT bus exist in the automation system at the same time, the interconnection communication cannot be performed directly, and a coupler needs to be designed to solve this problem later.

Contents of the invention

The technical problem to be solved by the utility model is to provide an EtherCAT bus coupler, which solves the problem that the gLink bus and the EtherCAT bus cannot directly communicate with each other.

The utility model adopts the following technical solutions for solving the above-mentioned technical problems:

An EtherCAT bus coupler, comprising an EtherCAT loop, a communication management control loop, and a gLink bus loop connected in sequence; wherein, the EtherCAT loop includes a slave station protocol controller, a network transformer, and an EtherCAT network interface; the communication management control loop includes a communication management controller , external memory; the gLink bus loop includes a gLink bus controller, a signal transceiver, and a gLink bus interface; the communication management controller is connected to the slave station protocol controller and the gLink bus controller respectively.

The slave station protocol controller is connected to the communication management controller through a data bus, and the communication management controller is connected to the gLink bus controller through a PCI bus.

The EtherCAT network interface adopts RJ45 interface.

Compared with the prior art, the utility model has the following beneficial effects:

1. ARM Cortex-M3 embedded processor is used as the central processing unit, which is simple to implement, has comprehensive functions, stable operation and low cost.

2. To solve the situation where the industrial system needs EtherCAT bus and gLink bus at the same time, EtherCAT is used as the master station, and the modules on the gLink bus are controlled through the coupler, and the interconnection and communication between the industrial automation field gLink bus device and the EtherCAT master station control system is realized. .

Description of drawings

Fig. 1 is the overall architecture diagram of the utility model system.

Fig. 2 is a block diagram of the hardware structure of the utility model coupler.

Fig. 3 is a schematic diagram of the design of the object dictionary of the utility model.

detailed description

Below in conjunction with accompanying drawing, structure and working process of the present utility model are further described.

An EtherCAT bus coupler, comprising an EtherCAT loop, a communication management control loop, and a gLink bus loop connected in sequence; wherein, the EtherCAT loop includes a slave station protocol controller, a network transformer, and an EtherCAT network interface; the communication management control loop includes a communication management controller , external memory; the gLink bus loop includes a gLink bus controller, a signal transceiver, and a gLink bus interface; the communication management controller is connected to the slave station protocol controller and the gLink bus controller respectively.

The overall structure of the system of the utility model is shown in Figure 1, which illustrates the connection relationship of the coupler of the utility model. The coupler pair performs data exchange with the EtherCAT master station through Ethernet; the coupler connects downward to the gLink bus slave device to realize communication, including real-time data communication, fault diagnosis recovery and redundancy switching processing, etc.; the communication between couplers is through The Ethernet interface follows the EtherCAT protocol.

Figure 2 shows the hardware architecture of the coupler, which is mainly composed of three parts: the communication management control loop, the EtherCAT loop, and the gLink bus loop. The main chip of the EtherCAT loop is the EtherCAT slave station protocol controller, which adopts Microchip's LAN9252 (built-in PHY), and connects with the RJ45 interface, and a network transformer is set between the slave station protocol controller and the RJ45 interface; the main chip of the communication management control loop It is MCU (ARM controller), adopts STM32F103VET6 processor, has external memory and JTAG circuit for debugging; gLink bus loop is mainly realized by FPGA, and there is a signal transceiver between FPGA and gLink bus interface; slave station protocol controller The data bus (DB bus) is used to connect with the communication management controller, and the SPI bus is used to connect the communication management controller and the gLink bus controller.

This new coupler has external interfaces in two directions. It exchanges data with the EtherCAT master station through Ethernet on the upper side. The communication protocol meets the requirements of the EtherCAT real-time industrial Ethernet technical specification; Data communication, fault diagnosis recovery and redundancy switching processing, etc.

The new coupler hardware includes EtherCAT slave station protocol controller (including PHY), slave station MCU (ARM controller), gLink bus controller, etc. The EtherCAT protocol controller implements the protocols of the physical layer and data link layer of EtherCAT. The slave station MCU is bidirectionally connected with the EtherCAT protocol controller and the gLink bus controller, and is mainly responsible for running the user's application program and realizing the protocol and data conversion between EtherCAT and gLink bus. The gLink bus controller implements the protocol of the physical layer and the data link layer of the gLink bus.

The main components of the coupler in this embodiment are as follows:

a. EtherCAT slave station protocol controller, model LAN9252 of Microchip Company.

b. MCU is ARM Cortex-M3 embedded processor, model STM32F103VET6.

c.gLink bus controller, realized by FPGA.

Communication processing between the coupler and the EtherCAT master station: the slave station protocol controller LAN9252 realizes the receiving, sending and error handling of the data of the EtherCAT master station. The slave station MCU operates the EtherCAT slave station protocol controller to implement the application layer protocol.

Communication processing between the coupler and the gLink bus master station: the communication processing module of the gLink bus master station mainly realizes data exchange, parameter configuration and fault diagnosis with the gLink bus slave station equipment.

After the coupler is powered on and initialized, and the parameters of the gLink bus communication are configured, the communication processing module of the gLink bus master station first requests the input data of the following gLink bus slave devices. After the master station receives this flag, the coupler switches to the running state. At this time, the output data is valid, and the communication processing module of the gLink bus master station sends the output data to the relevant gLink bus device. After a round of scanning of all slave stations is completed, it is judged and counted whether any slave stations have communication failures, and corresponding processing is carried out.

The utility model coupler adopts the object dictionary design, as shown in Figure 3: the EtherCAT protocol uses the object dictionary to realize standard parameter information configuration and input and output data read and write operations, and each object dictionary has a main index and multiple sub-indexes. The coupler adopts the multi-level object dictionary design pattern of the protocol conversion gateway and the gLink bus slave device.

Claims (3)

1. A kind of EtherCAT bus coupler, it is characterized in that: comprise the EtherCAT loop that connects successively, communication management control loop, gLink bus loop; Wherein, EtherCAT loop comprises slave station protocol controller, network transformer, EtherCAT network interface; Communication management control The loop includes a communication management controller and an external memory; the gLink bus loop includes a gLink bus controller, a signal transceiver, and a gLink bus interface; the communication management controller is connected to the slave station protocol controller and the gLink bus controller respectively. 2. The EtherCAT bus coupler according to claim 1, characterized in that: the slave station protocol controller and the communication management controller are connected by a data bus, and the communication management controller and the gLink bus controller are connected by a PCI bus . 3. The EtherCAT bus coupler according to claim 1, characterized in that: the EtherCAT network interface adopts an RJ45 interface.