Communication between AGV and standalone station via EtherCAT using WiFi - proof of concept

Modern industrial systems require more and more flexibility and mobility; furthermore the quantity of data generated by them is great. In some cases, classical wired networks are not feasible due to the type of device itself (e.g., AGV) or its location. In such cases wireless communication is the only solution. The then, the choice of appropriate communication protocol, especially in an industrial system, is crucial. The paper presents an approach of using a wireless connection in EtherCAT network, which in principle is a wired solution. Therefore, for wireless communication upper layer protocol has to be implemented. Here, Software Defined Networks SDN technology is used. SDN allows for dynamic and programmable infrastructure management and monitoring of network traffic. The proposed solution was compared in terms of performance to a standard wired connection. To do this research and confirm the theoretical assumptions industrial devices like PLC controllers, remote IO stations and servo drives were used. The paper shows limitations resulting from this type of communication and the possibility to reduce their significance.