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After the first EtherCAT Interoperability Testing Week of the EtherCAT Technology Group (ETG) at the beginning of the year met with a great response, especially in Europe, the second edition of the event was also very well received. During the one-week digital event, which was coordinated to the time zones of South, Central and North America, developers of EtherCAT devices improved the interoperability of their products online, boosted their development know-how and found an opportunity for interactive knowledge exchange with the other participants.

The wide acceptance of EtherCAT is reflected in numerous device implementations worldwide. To ensure that these devices can operate in the field without interference and are fully compatible with each other, ETG offers events several times a year that test and improve the compatibility and interoperability of EtherCAT devices – in addition to a defined conformance test process. One such event is the EtherCAT Interoperability Testing Week, whose second virtual edition mainly attracted participants from across the Americas. In addition to several Webinar Sessions, where registrants were online together to participate in various presentations or Q&A sessions, for example, there were also one-on-one expert sessions, where device manufacturers could discuss their EtherCAT implementations directly with ETG representatives in a protected room and clarify open questions regarding development, interoperability and testing.

And this was well received: Participants from more than 25 registered companies from five countries listened to the presentations on topics such as the EtherCAT Conformance Test Tool (CTT), EtherCAT Slave Stack Code (SSC), EtherCAT Slave Configuration Interface (SCI) or Safety over EtherCAT (FSoE) implementation, took part in the Q&A sessions and used the expert panels to clarify their individual implementation questions.

Dr. Guido Beckmann, EtherCAT expert and Chairman of the ETG Technical Committee, summarized the event as follows: "The EtherCAT Interoperability Testing Weeks offer device manufacturers a welcome opportunity to improve the interoperability of their implementation without already having the devices in the field. This approach, which has already been successfully supported in the ETG for years by numerous EtherCAT Plug Fests, can fortunately be continued in COVID-19 times through the intensive exchange with the ETG experts in the online sessions."

Following the renewed success of the event, there will soon also be EtherCAT Interoperability Testing Weeks in Japan, China and Korea. All upcoming dates are already published online at www.ethercat.org/events.