Communication protocol 87
Communication protocol
What this chapter contains
This chapter describes the communication on an EtherCAT
network.
EtherCAT frame structure
In EtherCAT, the data between the master and the slaves is
transmitted in Ethernet frames. An EtherCAT Ethernet frame
consists of one or several EtherCAT telegrams, each addressing
individual devices and/or memory areas. The telegrams can be
transported either directly in the data area of the Ethernet frame or
within the data section of a UDP datagram transported via IP.