Enhancing time synchronization between host and node stations using a fuzzy proportional-integral approach for EtherCAT-based motion control systems.

Abstract

Real-time synchronization for the servo system becomes one of the most popular themes in the Industry 4.0 era. Each connected agent publishes its data and mutual information in the shared protocol while host station plays a role as coordinator among them. In the existing works, it reveals several drawbacks owing to low adaptability and inestimable redundancy. Hence, our study presents a novel method to synchronize between host and slaves by using the modified EtherCAT-based Type-2 Fuzzy-Proportional-Integral (mET2FuPI) control scheme. To serve our purpose, a custom platform of EtherCAT host is investigated to maintain the powerful resource in both data exchange and theoretical computation. The experimental validations of our system including one host station and three node stations are tested to measure the synchronized performance. From these results, it can be obviously seen that our approach is effective and feasible to deploy in the real-world applications.