The Safety over EtherCAT protocol has been assessed by German Technical Inspection Agency (TÜV). It is certified as a protocol for transferring process data between Safety over EtherCAT devices up to SIL 3 according to IEC 61508. The implementation of the Safety over EtherCAT protocol in a device must meet the requirements of the safety target. The associated product-specific requirements must be taken into account.

Any transmission link can be used, including fieldbus systems, Ethernet or similar transfer routes, optical fiber cables, copper cables, or radio links. There are no restrictions or requirements for Bus Couplers or other devices located along the transfer route. A conformance test for supporting implementation of the protocol in devices is currently being developed. This test is a pure protocol test for checking the behavior of the safety protocol via the communication interface of a test device (black box test).

The first step is reading the device description file of the test device in order to determine the possible parameters for the test. Test scripts from a configuration can then be executed on a standard PC. The test device is subjected to correct and faulty frames and the response is compared with an expected result. A test report summarizes the results of the individual test steps.