Performance evaluation of industrial Ethernet protocols for networked control application

Boosted by trends such as Industrial IoT and Industry 4.0, industrial Ethernet networks (EtherNet/IP, EtherCAT and PROFINET IRT as top-3 players) have been commonly deployed in industrial automation. The aim of this paper is to provide a practical guideline for selecting the right protocol in industrial networked control systems (NCSs) by comparing the performance of these protocols. Communication delays are discussed, formulated and evaluated with a study of a typical NCS. Simulation results demonstrate that with different frame packing, media access scheme, etc., EtherNet/IP, EtherCAT and PROFINET IRT offer different levels of real-time capabilities which lead to different control performance. Economic Development Board (EDB) The authors would like to thank the editor and anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments on the manuscript. This work was supported by Singapore Economic Development Board (EDB) [grant number S11-1669-IPP].