An IO-Link master can be realized either as part of a modular sercos slave I/O device or as a stand-alone sercos III slave. The cyclic data of all inputs and outputs of IO-Link slaves are either transmitted completely within a cyclic IO container or alternatively as separate parameters. The sercos parameter channel can be used in order to execute acyclic read/write access with regard to the addressed IO-Link slave devices.

On the joint sercos booth at Hanover Fair, sercos member Hilscher GmbH presented a development board with an integrated IO-Link master controller supporting 8 IO-link channels and a sercos III slave interface. The board is based on a Hilscher netX 51 network controller. Intelligent sensors and actuators can thus be easier and faster integrated into the established sercos automation bus via the IO-Link communication.

About sercos international

sercos international is an association of users and manufacturers that is in charge of technical development, standardization, conformance inspection, certification, and marketing for the sercos® automation bus. Conformance tests ensure that the implementation of sercos is in accordance with standards and thus allows the combination and integration of devices from different manufacturers. Based in Germany, the organization presently has more than 70 member companies located around the world, and has liaison offices in North America and Asia.

About sercos

The SErial Realtime COmmunication System, or sercos®, is one of the world's leading digital interfaces for communication between controls, drives, and decentralized peripheral devices. sercos has been used in machine engineering for more than 20 years and is implemented in over 3.5 million real-time nodes. With its open, manufacturer-independent Ethernet-based architecture, sercos III is a universal bus for all automation solutions.