EtherCAT has some technologies for the distributed application:

(1)Distribute clocks

(2)Time stamp

Distributed clocks

All EtherCAT devices have their own local clocks

Automatically and continuously Synchronized with the  clocks via the EtherCAT communication

The Accuracy of the Time is decided by the hardware

<100ns, accuracy

Time stamp

Time stamped data types contain a time stamp in addition to their user data.        

naturally expressed in the ubiquitous system time

enables provision of temporal information with significantly higher precision for the process record

Time Stamp is a good features support for the distributed application

Time stamps can be used for inputs (e.g. to identify the time of an event occurred) and outputs (e.g. timing of a response).

Distributed OS application- QNX