Protocol efficiency

In automation engineering, many users that each have a low amount of data to transmit are typically connected to each other via control and sensor/actuator levels. If this process data is transmitted in individual telegrams, an unfavorable ratio between the Ethernet overhead and the user data volume will be created. In addition, should the user data be less than 46 bytes, telegrams are filled with zero bytes (called padding) to reach the minimum length of 64 bytes. In doing so, valuable bandwidth is wasted. Thus, summation frame telegrams as utilized by Sercos, where real-time data from several users is consolidated into one common telegram, are more efficient.