Berlin, December 10th, 2013
Real-Time under Windows with EtherCAT and DIAdem
The German company A-solution GmbH has successfully introduced their new product “DIAdem EtherCAT Driver” to the public at the Technology and User Conference VIP 2013 this year.
Based on EtherCAT—the fast industrial Ethernet standard—the driver provides a real-time connection between the universal software package DIAdem by National Instruments and the varied EtherCAT hardware devices for measurement, control and analysis.
The basis of the driver is the EtherCAT Master by Kithara Software. For the first time, this allows for the simultaneous data acquisition and output with a cyclical process data exchange in the two-digit kilohertz range in DIAdem. The Kithara EtherCAT Master supports standard Ethernet controllers, so no special PC hardware is required and any form of PC (e.g. notebooks) can be used with the driver. The network interface switches automatically between Ethernet and EtherCAT.
By means of a bus-scan function, the EtherCAT topology is automatically detected and can be selected in DIAdem. The driver supports all I/O modules of the C-Series that are available for the EtherCAT slave chassis 9144 from National Instruments. It allows for the easy setting of all relevant hardware parameters directly from DIAdem.
The “DIAdem EtherCAT Driver” of a-solution supports all current Windows operating systems, including Windows 7 and Windows 8 or 8.1 (with 32 or 64 bits).
