Berlin, July 10th, 2012

Kithara with Safety over EtherCAT

Kithara Software has finished an extension for the EtherCAT Master for safety solutions. By using the Windows real-time extension Kithara RealTime Suite, it is possible to implement safety-critical solutions up to SIL3.

Technical machines and application often require integrated safety solutions. These include certain specific conditions that have to be fulfilled, which in the most cases consists of special cable systems and safety control.

Using the Kithara EtherCAT Master, this will not be necessary anymore. It is now possible to integrate safety solutions according to the FSoE protocol (FailSave over EtherCAT) up to SIL3. For this purpose all known EtherCAT safety terminals of Beckhoff (TwinSAFE) can be used. A special cable system or safety control is obsolete. In this manner, Kithara provides the first TwinCAT-indepedent EtherCAT Master implementation including the capability for Safety over EtherCAT integration.

The safety implementation of the Kithara EtherCAT Master supports multiple and even nested safety groups. The configuration of the Safety Logic Terminal (EL6900) is managed through the free available System Manager by Beckhoff. The EtherCAT Master automatically identifies and manages the predefined TwinsSafe connections. The user does not have to manage the safe data transfer between the safety terminals. However, it is possible to read the mapped safe variables from the shared-memory as usual.

In order to gain FSoE support, the EtherCAT Master (e. g. Kithara RealTime EtherCAT) requires an extension for FSoE.

All current Windows OS are supported (Windows 7 and Windows 8 in 32 or 64 bit). The programming language is C/C++ or Delphi. The application can also be embedded in C#.