Ethernet Powerlink Kit

Description
Already today real-time Ethernet is a successful replacement for all sorts of traditional fieldbus systems in industrial automation. This trend was expedited by a wide acceptance of the Ethernet Powerlink (EPL) standard by many device manufacturers and by the availability of pre-engineered interface turnkey solutions as found in SND's Micro WebTargetTM board family. Based on SND's HyNetOS and including, among other features, a complete V1.0 or V2.0 EPL protocol stack for Controlled Nodes (CN) and Managing Nodes (MN) all the protocol complexity and real-time requirements of the new standard are hidden from the application programmer. The adaptation process just includes a set of interface functions and a prototype of a working EPL device can be set up within days using this evaluation kit. This Kit is designed for an easy and hassle-free integration of Ethernet Powerlink into all sorts of PLC's and automation components such as sensors and actuators.

Kit Editions
The Kit comes complete with hardware, HyNetOS™ operating system software including several extensions as well as all required development and administration tools. It is available in 2 different editions (refer to table below).

In the Base Edition the kit is ready to operate a full EPL network offering adaptations on application and device profile level. The HyNetOS operating system can be rebuild using SND's standard driver library targeting boards of the Micro WebTarget board family. The Base Edition is ideal as entry level kit and for those device manufacturers, who intend to purchase SND's Micro WebTarget boards for integration in their products as a piggy-back.

The Professional Edition extends the Base Edition with device drivers supplied in source code, so new device drivers can be added and the OS can be adapted to support ANY customer specific hardware as also all board schematics are part of the kit. The Professional Edition specifically addresses device manufacturers, who intend to integrate the hardware design onto their own PCB.

Both Editions run on any PC with Win98/ME/NT/2000/XP and Ethernet Adapter Card. A Java2 Standard Edition (J2SE) SDK from Sun Microsystems V1.4 or newer (available for free via Internet) is required to run the PC parts of the Client/Server demo software.