EtherCAT Master Controller Solution Based on Remi Pi

EtherCAT is a real-time industrial Ethernet technology proposed by the German BECKHOFF company in 2003. It has the characteristics of high speed and high data efficiency, and supports multiple device connection topologies. Its slave nodes use dedicated control chips, while the master station uses standard Ethernet controllers.

Both Industry 4.0 and the Internet of Things (IoT) require high networking and powerful communication capabilities between devices and servers. EtherCAT is a relatively mature industrial Ethernet fieldbus, specifically used for motion control applications. Compared to traditional industrial fieldbuses, EtherCAT has many advantages such as high stability, high real-time performance, high integration, strong scalability, and easy installation. It breaks through the system limitations of traditional Ethernet solutions and is widely used in the field of industrial control.

Based on MYIR’s Remi Pi Single Board Computer (SBC), the EtherCAT Master controller can achieve more intelligent EtherCAT master control by applying Preempt-RT real-time patches to the kernel and porting the open-source EtherCAT Master software IGH.

EtherCAT Master Controller Based on Remi Pi

1. RT Linux Real-time Patch

Obtain the patch corresponding to the L5.10.83 kernel version from the RT official website. The link is as follows:

https://cdn.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/projects/rt/5.10/older/ 

Extract the patch package to your own working directory.

PC:~/renesas/04_Sources$ tar -xvf patches-5.10.83-rt58.tar.gz

Apply patches to the kernel source code directory.

PC:~/renesas/04_Sources/myir-renesas-linux$ for p in `ls -1 ../patches/*.patch`;do patch -p1 < $p;done

Modify the mys_g2lx_defconfig configuration file

PC:~/renesas/04_Sources/myir-renesas-linux$ vi arch/arm64/configs/mys_g2lx_defconfig

CONFIG_EXPERT=y

CONFIG_ARCH_SUPPORTS_RT=y

CONFIG_PREEMPT_RT=y

#CONFIG_PREEMPT=y

#CONFIG_KVM=y

Compile the kernel source code and update the Image file.

PC:~/renesas/04_Sources/myir-renesas-linux$ source /opt/remi-sdk/environment-setup-aarch64-poky-linux

PC:~/renesas/04_Sources/myir-renesas-linux$ make ARCH=arm64 mys_g2lx_defconfig

PC:~/renesas/04_Sources/myir-renesas-linux$ make ARCH=arm64 Image dtbs   -j16

2. IGH EtherCAT Master

Download the source code of Ethercat version 1.5 from the official website, the link is as follows:

https://gitlab.com/etherlab.org/ethercat/-/tree/stable-1.5?ref_type=heads

Extract the Ethercat source code package to your own working directory.

PC:~/renesas/04_Sources$ tar -xvf ethercat-stable-1.5.tar.bz2

PC:~/renesas/04_Sources$ cd ethercat-stable-1.5

Load environment variables

PC:~/renesas/04_Sources/ethercat-stable-1.5$ source /opt/remi-sdk/environment-setup-aarch64-poky-linux

Generate a configure file

PC:~/renesas/04_Sources/ethercat-stable-1.5$ ./bootstrap

Configure settings

PC:~/renesas/04_Sources/ethercat-stable-1.5$ mkdir output

PC:~/renesas/04_Sources/ethercat-stable-1.5$ ./configure --prefix=/home/renesas/04_Sources/ethercat-stable-1.5/output --with-linux-dir=/home/renesas/04_Sources/myir-renesas-linux  --enable-8139too=no  --enable-generic=yes   --host=aarch64-poky-linux

Compile and install

PC:~/renesas/04_Sources/ethercat-stable-1.5$ make

PC:~/renesas/04_Sources/ethercat-stable-1.5$ make modules

PC:~/renesas/04_Sources/ethercat-stable-1.5$ make install

After compilation and installation, the generated ec_generic.ko driver file is located in the devices directory, the ec_master.ko driver file is located in the master directory, and the generated library related files are located in the output directory.

PC:~/renesas/04_Sources/ethercat-stable-1.5$ ls devices/en_genric.ko

devices/ec_generic.ko

PC:~/renesas/04_Sources/ethercat-stable-1.5$ master/ec_master.ko

devices/ec_master.ko

PC:~/renesas/04_Sources/ethercat-stable-1.5$ ls output/

bin  etc  include  lib  sbin  share

Copy the relevant files and ec_master.ko from the output directory above to the following directory on the development board:

root@myir-remi-1g:~/output# ls

bin  etc  include  lib  modules  sbin  share

root@myir-remi-1g:~/output# cp bin/ethercat /bin/

root@myir-remi-1g:~/output# cp etc/ethercat.conf /etc/

root@myir-remi-1g:~/output# cp etc/init.d/*  /etc/init.d

root@myir-remi-1g:~/output# cp -r etc/sysconfig/ /etc/

root@myir-remi-1g:~/output# cp  lib/libethercat.* /lib64/

root@myir-remi-1g:~/output# cp -r lib/pkgconfig /lib64/

root@myir-remi-1g:~/output# cp modules/ec_master.ko /lib/modules/5.10.83-cip1-rt58-yocto-standard/

root@myir-remi-1g:~/output# cp -r etc/sysconfig/ /etc/

root@myir-remi-1g:~/output# cp  lib/libethercat.* /lib64/

root@myir-remi-1g:~/output# cp -r lib/pkgconfig /lib64/

root@myir-remi-1g:~/output# cp modules/ec_master.ko /lib/modules/5.10.83-cip1-rt58-yocto-standard/

root@myir-remi-1g:~/output# cp sbin/ethercatctl  /sbin/

start Ethercat。

root@myir-remi-1g:~# depmod

root@myir-remi-1g:~# modprobe ec_master main_devices=1E:ED:19:27:1A:B3

root@myir-remi-1g:~# /etc/init.d/ethercat start

Starting EtherCAT master 1.5.2  done