EtherCAT (Ethernet for Control Automation Technology) is an emerging real-time industrial Ethernet standard for industrial automation applications. It was originally developed by Beckhoff Automation GmbH but is now overseen by the EtherCAT Technology Group. Today, there are over 1,700 member companies from 52 countries that create and deploy EtherCAT-compatible products.

Although Ethernet has seen unparalleled adoption in diverse applications, it is still not efficient enough for small amounts of data exchange such as in industrial environments. It has low determinism for real-time operation, and it works with only star topology in which the network nodes must be connected through switches. EtherCAT adds certain features to Ethernet and enforces certain configurations to make it a very efficient network technology for automation while still fully conforming to the Ethernet specifications.

The design of EtherCAT enables any standard PC to be used as an EtherCAT master and communicate with EtherCAT slaves, which are specialized devices compliant with the EtherCAT specification. Together, the master and slave EtherCAT devices can be used in all devices in the factory network — automation controllers, operator interfaces, remote input/output units, sensors, actuators, drives and others.