The efficiency of industrial automation systems stands and falls with their uninterrupted operation and high flexibility with regard to dynamic configuration changes. The following example illustrates what this means in practice:
Let's imagine a production plant whose assembly robots have tool changers in order to realize several production processes with one hardware. In terms of industrial communication, a tool change means that slave devices have to be switched on or off during operation. While the network configuration is dynamically adapted, the assembly robot must continue to function without interruption. The master must therefore not cause a system failure due to configuration errors.
To ensure this, the EtherCAT protocol for masters offers the “Hot Connect” functionality, which is explained in more detail below.