By using a Sercos III Soft-Master, a Sercos III master device can be implemented without specific FPGAs or an ASIC Sercos III hardware controller. Instead, a standard Ethernet controller is used and the Sercos III hardware functions are emulated in a host-based driver software. With this implementation approach, a sufficient real-time performance can be ensured for a large number of applications. If an Ethernet controller is used that operates with multiple queues and a telegram scheduler (for example, the INTEL i210), you can achieve a synchronicity similar to that of a hardware-based master.

Various prominent companies have already started to implement projects using the Sercos III Soft-Master in cooperation with Bosch Rexroth. After a controlled testing period, the Soft-Master will be available under an open source license for general use in the software pool of Sercos International. The license model will follow the one used for the Sercos III master library CoSeMa, which has been available as open source since April 2009 and can be used for hardware-based as well as software-based master implementations.

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