EtherCAT® system in Cable Redundancy mode can maintain the communication in case of a cable break or node failure. Therefore, we use a ring topology, which is normally operated in both directions.
Both branches can nevertheless still be reached if the ring is interrupted at some point. A second network port is used for ring closure at EtherCAT® master control system.
In absence of any fault, all the EtherCAT® slaves are reached in the forward direction from the primary port or from the secondary port in the reverse direction – the data in the "redundancy" frame is therefore not changed.
Сable Redundancy mode is single-error tolerant, i.e. normal communication with the slaves will continue if the cable is interrupted in one place. When the communication is restored, the original communication direction is restored as well. If the communication is interrupted in more than one place, all connections have to be restored for normal communication.
To implement Cable redundancy feature, only a second Ethernet adapter is required on a target System. To activate this feature from Master side, the VS EtherCAT Master license must allow it.