EC-Simulator virtualizes EtherCAT networks by simulating the EtherCAT slave devices in order to run EtherCAT Master applications without real EtherCAT slave hardware devices available.EtherCAT simulation is possible via a physical network adapter, or also virtually, to realize a completely simulated machine setup. Configuring the simulation instance is seamless using the ENI file of the real network.With EC-Simulator it is possible to react to Process Data (PDOs), send and receive Service Data (SDOs), interact with the Slave Stack, and more. This is all possible to be programmed via the API available for C/C++ or .NET, enabling the connection of EtherCAT data to various other professional software tools for the imitation of real-world systems.