/p-net

PROFINET device stack for embedded devices

Primary LanguageCOtherNOASSERTION

p-net Profinet device stack

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p-net

The rt-labs Profinet stack p-net is used for Profinet device implementations. It is easy to use and provides a small footprint. It is especially well suited for embedded systems where resources are limited and efficiency is crucial.

It is written in C and can be run on bare-metal hardware, an RTOS such as rt-kernel, or on Linux. The main requirement is that the platform can send and receive raw Ethernet Layer 2 frames. The p-net stack is supplied with full sources including a porting layer.

Also C++ (any version) is supported.

rt-labs p-net is developed according to specification 2.3:

  • Conformance Class A (Class B upon request)
  • Real Time Class 1

Features:

  • TCP/IP
  • RT (real-time)
  • Address resolution
  • Parameterization
  • Process IO data exchange
  • Alarm handling
  • Configurable number of modules and sub-modules
  • Bare-metal or OS
  • Porting layer provided
  • Supports I&M0 - I&M4. The I&M data is supported for the device, but not for individual modules.

Limitations or not yet implemented:

  • Only a single Ethernet interface (no media redundancy)
  • No startup mode legacy
  • No support for RT_CLASS_UDP
  • No support for DHCP
  • No fast start-up
  • No MC multicast device-to-device
  • No iPar (parameter server) support
  • No support for time synchronization

This software is dual-licensed, with GPL version 3 and a commercial license. See LICENSE.md for more details.

Requirements

The platform must be able to send and receive raw Ethernet Layer 2 frames, and the Ethernet driver must be able to handle full size frames. It should also avoid copying data, for performance reasons.

  • cmake 3.13 or later

For Linux:

  • gcc 4.6 or later
  • See the "Real-time properties of Linux" page in the documentation on how to improve Linux timing

For rt-kernel:

  • Workbench 2017.1 or later

An example of microcontroller we have been using is the Infineon XMC4800, which has an ARM Cortex-M4 running at 144 MHz, with 2 MB Flash and 352 kB RAM. It runs rt-kernel, and we have tested it with 9 Profinet slots each having 8 digital inputs and 8 digital outputs (one bit each). The values are sent and received each millisecond (PLC watchdog setting 3 ms).

Dependencies

The p-net stack contains no third party components. Its external dependencies are:

  • C-library
  • An operating system (if used)

Tools used for building and documentation (not shipped in the resulting binaries):

  • cmake (BSD 3-clause License)
  • Sphinx (BSD license)

Contributions

Contributions are welcome. If you want to contribute you will need to sign a Contributor License Agreement and send it to us either by e-mail or by physical mail. More information is available on https://rt-labs.com/contribution.