The EtherCAT Technology Group (ETG) successfully launched the EtherCAT International Technology Week (ITW) world series, which took place in an online format from November 21 to 25, 2022. As a new highlight in ETG’s event calendar, the ITW world series will continue well into 2023.
With a full week of webinars dedicated on EtherCAT development topics, and ample time for questions beyond the webinar content, ETG’s top EtherCAT experts provided practical expertise in a wide range of topics. They addressed engineers and product managers starting out in EtherCAT development by showing a possible path for an EtherCAT SubDevice development from the very beginning to final testing and certification. Attendees also learned how to best navigate EtherCAT standards and the knowledge database. Since 2003, the ETG has developed an expansive library of documentation, and a new“Navigate EtherCAT Information” webinar helps maximize use of the EtherCAT standards and documentation ecosystem.
Other content covered how to use one of the most important EtherCAT development tools – The Conformance Test Tool (CTT) – from getting started to its more advanced features, including its remote calling interface for automated testing. There were also specific EtherCAT SubDevice design topics, drive and Safety over EtherCAT implementation content, and even EtherCAT MainDevice and configuration knowledge topics.
The ITW world series, a fully online event, is designed to make its content and questions forum available in different time zones and different languages. After the series started at the end of November in Europe, the U.S. follows in December, China in January 2023, Japan in February, and then South Korea in March. For China, Japan, and South Korea, translations into local languages with subtitles will be included.
The ITW format has its roots in EtherCAT development support events conducted online while in-person ETG Plug Fests were not possible during the COVID-19 pandemic. One of ETG’s technical experts Gregor Erzen, who is heavily involved in organizing the ITW webinars, explains: “The overwhelming interest in the first ITW in 2021 with more than 300 registrations from 200 companies has shown the value of such an event. And yes, we were lucky to host face-to-face Plug Fests again this year (Plug Fest Japan is also coming up at the end of November). We plan to continue the virtual ITW in addition to live Plug Fests in the future.” His ETG colleague, Florian Hammel is looking forward to the event series and adds:“When the event was first announced online, we received more than 100 registrations within one day. Attendees have showed their incredible interest in many webinars, which shows that the event has the right topical focus and format to best support developers in their everyday EtherCAT implementation efforts.”