What is EtherCAT

This chapter deals with industrial networked control systems. These systems are the most modern means of industrial control. The current approach contains several problems. Mostly discussed problem in the control theory is a network-caused variable transport delay problem. On the software point of view there is problem of the system latency, which limits time period of the discrete control. State of art research in hardware part of the system shows that latency source and transport delay variations are caused by unpredictable hardware behavior as well. Another problem is the control system security. This was the case of the Mexico gulf oil rig disaster in 2010, as well as Iran nuclear program three months later the same year, caused by worm attack at its centrifuges. Therein lies the question; how can security issues be avoided? The authors demonstrate how via using GNU/Linux, which solves timing correctness by their project of the plasma cutting machine design.