Safe EtherCAT controller on the NVIDIA IGX Thor platform by acontis and ISIT
Weingarten, June 22, 2026 – acontis technologies and ISIT present a combined solution that runs a complete EtherCAT controller including functional safety on a single NVIDIA IGX Thor platform: The acontis EtherCAT MainDevice stack, EC-Master, runs on the main CPU under Linux, while the FSoE MainInstance software from ISIT runs on the dedicated safety island of the same device.
The architecture uses both processing domains of the NVIDIA IGX Thor platform. On the main CPU, EC-Master controls the EtherCAT network, handles real-time communication with all connected devices and provides the connection to the platform’s advanced functions – including the NVIDIA Isaac open robotics platform and ROS 2 for AI, perception and robotics workloads. In parallel, the ISIT FSoE MainInstance runs on the Arm Cortex-R5 safety cores of the Thor safety island and handles functional safety communication. Together, EC-Master and the FSoE MainInstance turn a single NVIDIA device into a safe EtherCAT controller.
EC-Master is the leading EtherCAT MainDevice software on NVIDIA platforms and delivers the highest performance with short cycle times thanks to optimized network drivers. It brings a wide range of functions that further increase reliability and availability, such as cable redundancy and MainDevice redundancy. As the EtherCAT communication layer, EC-Master also acts as the black channel for FSoE, transporting the safety data without being part of the safety function itself.
The ISIT FSoE stack is portable across many platforms and is now available on the NVIDIA IGX Thor platform. It supports functional safety applications up to SIL 3 and communicates seamlessly with EC-Master over the black channel. ISIT contributes more than 30 years of experience in functional safety to the solution, thus being able to provide a pre-certified safety solution for many applications.
By combining safe EtherCAT control and AI-capable computing on one device, the solution allows robot controllers, humanoid robot controllers as well as classic machine controllers and CNC systems to be designed in a new and forward-looking way – reducing hardware and integration effort.
“Running the EtherCAT MainDevice and the FSoE MainInstance on a single NVIDIA platform removes a whole layer of dedicated control hardware,” says Thomas Waggershauser, Managing Director at acontis technologies. “Customers building robots, humanoids or machines get safe, high-performance EtherCAT control and AI computing in one place – with the redundancy and cycle-time performance our customers expect from EC-Master.”
“Bringing our FSoE MainInstance to the safety island of the NVIDIA IGX Thor platform shows how portable and robust our safety software is,” says Franck Montagne, CTO at ISIT. “Together with EC-Master, we provide seamless safety communication up to SIL 3 on a state-of-the-art AI platform.”
The solution is available from acontis and ISIT – for further details contact sales@acontis.com.