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5 EtherCAT Communications
E3NW-ECT EtherCAT Digital Sensor Communication Unit Operation Manual (E429)
5-4 Process Data Objects (PDO)
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5-4-1 Overview
5-4 Process Data Objects (PDO)
The process data objects (PDO) are used for real-time data transfer via cyclic communications.
PDOs include RxPDOs, which are used by the slaves to receive data from the EtherCAT master, and
TxPDOs, which are used by the slaves to send data to the EtherCAT master.
It is possible to hold multiple objects in the EtherCAT application layer so that various process data of
EtherCAT Sensor Communication Units can be transferred. The details of process data are described
in PDO Mapping Objects and Sync Manager PDO Assignment Objects.
E3NW-ECT EtherCAT Sensor Communication Units support PDO mapping for I/O control.
The PDO mapping indicates the mapping for application objects (realtime process data) between the
object dictionary and PDO.
The number of mapped objects is described in sub-index 0 of the mapping table. In this mapping table,
indexes 1600 hex to 17FF hex are used for RxPDO and 1A00 hex to 1BFF hex are used for TxPDO.
5-4-1 Overview
5-4-2 PDO Mapping Settings
RxPDO
output data, operation command, and so on
TxPDO
input data, status, and so on
EtherCAT
Master
Unit
EtherCAT
Slave
Unit