Transitioning to RTOS-Based Systems

Real-time embedded systems using 8 and 16 bit microcontrollers have traditionally used baremetal scheduling techniques to achieve their real-time performance. While these techniques can be used to develop nearly any embedded system, the proliferation of 32-bit microcontrollers and internet connected devices are forcing developers to revisit the way they are building embedded systems. The questions is no longer should I use an RTOS, but how can I most effectively design a system using an RTOS. In this session, attendees will not only review the traditional baremetal techniques such as round-robin and cooperative scheduling but dive into designing using real-time operating systems. This session will explore how developers can leverage RTOSes to accelerate embedded system design, improve system robustness and understand what their embedded system is doing at a level of detail never previously attained. This lecture will review RTOS fundamentals in addition to discussing cutting edge topics such as task analysis, monitoring, debugging and common pitfalls. Attendees will walk away with this knowledge in addition to how to select an RTOS and decide whether a commercial or open source solution is the right choice for a project.

Takeaway

Attendees will take-a-way why RTOSes are so critical to developing embedded systems in the 32-bit space and especially for devices that will be connected to the internet. We will cover the basic fundamentals such as:

• Task and scheduling
• Semaphores
• Mutexes
• Event Flags
• RTOS common issues and bugs