At Hannover Fair 2011 sercos international announced that it is making a driver library for the sercos/IP protocol for the sercos automation bus available as open source software. The driver software is available for download in C# source code via http://sourceforge.net, without any license fees or usage limitations.

The new protocol enables direct communication and uniform data exchange between devices without a sercos master or a running sercos communication being necessary. The sercos/IP protocol can still be used in cyclic real time operation. In this case the sercos/IP telegrams are transferred into the sercos NRT (Non Real-Time) channel, with no negative influence on the real time behavior of the network.

The vertical integration of devices into a production system is improved with the sercos/IP protocol. Set-up, remote maintenance, and diagnosis of sercos devices can be carried out via sercos/IP over an intranet or the Internet.

For more information please visit www.sercos.com or www.sercos.org.