The Fail Safe over EtherCAT (FSoE) protocol implemented on the IEEE 802.11 WLAN

Wireless networks are ever more deployed in industrial automation systems in various types of applications. A significant example in this context is represented by the transmission of safety data that, traditionally, was accomplished by wired systems. In this paper we propose an implementation of the Fail Safe over EtherCAT (FSoE) protocol on the top of IEEE 802.11 WLAN. The paper, after a general introduction of FSoE, focuses on the implementation of such protocol on commercial devices running UDP at the transport layer and connected via the IEEE 802.11 Wireless LAN. Then the paper presents some experimental setups and the tests that have been carried out on them. The obtained results are encouraging, since they show that good safety performance can be achieved even in the presence of wireless transmission media.