I would like to introduce RMP to my company, but our current hardware is a mix of CANOpen and Ethernet/IP controlled devices. It would be a hard sell for me to recommend replacing all of these devices with their EtherCAT counterparts just for a pilot. Is RMP compatible with any protocol bridges that might allow me to control these devices?
Thank you for your question! There are a number gateways/bridges you could use to interface between the RMP EtherCAT master and the CANopen and Ethernet/IP devices. Beckhoff has EL6xxx terminals and Anybus has network gateways as well, just to list a couple examples. However, these devices require that you map the addresses for each device you are wanting to communicate too so working with them just takes more development time. Also note that when bridging between two networks, you’ll have a bit higher latency too which can be problematic depending on the application.