REAL TIME OPERATING SYSTEMS

Lesson-12:
Real Time Operating System based
System design Principles

Chapter-8 L12: "Embedded Systems - Architecture,

2008 Programming and Design" , Raj Kamal, Publs.: McGraw-Hill, 1
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 Design with the ISRs and Tasks
 The embedded system hardware source
calls generates interrupts
 ISR ─ only post (send) the messages
 Provides of nesting of ISRs, while tasks run
concurrently
 A task─ wait and take the messages (IPCs)
and post (send) the messages using the
system calls.
 A task or ISR should not call another task or
ISR Chapter-8 L12: "Embedded Systems - Architecture,
2008 Programming and Design" , Raj Kamal, Publs.: McGraw-Hill, 2
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 Each ISR design consisting of shorter code

 Since ISRs have higher priorities over the

tasks, the ISR code should be made short so
that the tasks don’t wait longer to execute.
 A design principle is that the ISR code
should be optimally short and the detailed
computations be given to an IST or task by
posting a message or parameters for that.
 The frequent posting of the messages by the
IPC functions from the ISRs be avoided
Chapter-8 L12: "Embedded Systems - Architecture,
2008 Programming and Design" , Raj Kamal, Publs.: McGraw-Hill, 3
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 Design with using Interrupt Service
Threads or Interrupt Service tasks
 In certain RTOSes, for servicing the
interrupts, there are two levels, fast level
ISRs and slow level ISTs, the priorities are
first for the ISRs, then for the ISTs and then
the task
 In certain RTOSes, three levels

Chapter-8 L12: "Embedded Systems - Architecture,

2008 Programming and Design" , Raj Kamal, Publs.: McGraw-Hill, 4
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 Design with using Interrupt Service
Threads
 ISRs post the messages for the ISTs and
do the detailed computations.
 If RTOS is providing for only one level,
then use the tasks as interrupt service
threads

Chapter-8 L12: "Embedded Systems - Architecture,

2008 Programming and Design" , Raj Kamal, Publs.: McGraw-Hill, 5
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Design Each Task with an infinite loop
 Each task has a while loop which never
terminates.
 A task waits for an IPC or signal to start.
 The task, which gets the signal or takes the
IPC for which it is waiting, runs from the
point where it was blocked or preempted.
 In preemptive scheduler, the high priority
task can be delayed for some period to let
the low priority task execute
Chapter-8 L12: "Embedded Systems - Architecture,
2008 Programming and Design" , Raj Kamal, Publs.: McGraw-Hill, 6
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 Design in the form of tasks for the Better
and Predictable Response Time Control
 provide the control over the response time
of the different tasks.
 The different tasks are assigned different
priorities and those tasks which system
needs to execute with faster response are
separated out.

Chapter-8 L12: "Embedded Systems - Architecture,

2008 Programming and Design" , Raj Kamal, Publs.: McGraw-Hill, 7
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 Response Time Control

 For example, in mobile phone device there

is need for faster response to the phone call
receiving task then the user key input.
 In digital camera, the task for recording the
image needs faster response than the task
for down loading the image on computer
through USB port

Chapter-8 L12: "Embedded Systems - Architecture,

2008 Programming and Design" , Raj Kamal, Publs.: McGraw-Hill, 8
Inc.
Design in the form of tasks Modular Design

 System of multiple tasks makes the design

modular.
 The tasks provide modular design

Chapter-8 L12: "Embedded Systems - Architecture,

2008 Programming and Design" , Raj Kamal, Publs.: McGraw-Hill, 9
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 Design in the form of tasks for Data
Encapsulation
 System of multiple tasks encapsulates the
code and data of one task from the other by
use of global variables in critical sections
getting exclusive access by mutex

Chapter-8 L12: "Embedded Systems - Architecture,

2008 Programming and Design" , Raj Kamal, Publs.: McGraw-Hill, 10
Inc.
Design with taking care of the time spent in
the system calls
 expected time in general depends on the
specific target processor of the embedded
system and the memory access times.
 Some IPCs takes longer than the other

Chapter-8 L12: "Embedded Systems - Architecture,

2008 Programming and Design" , Raj Kamal, Publs.: McGraw-Hill, 11
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 Design with Limited number of tasks

 Limit the number of tasks and select the

appropriate number of tasks to increase
the response time to the tasks, better
control over shared resource and reduced
memory requirement for stacks
 The tasks, which share the data with
number of tasks, can be designed as one
single task.

Chapter-8 L12: "Embedded Systems - Architecture,

2008 Programming and Design" , Raj Kamal, Publs.: McGraw-Hill, 12
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 Use appropriate precedence assignment
strategy and Use Preemption
 Use appropriate precedence assignment
strategy and Use Preemption in place of
Time Slicing

Chapter-8 L12: "Embedded Systems - Architecture,

2008 Programming and Design" , Raj Kamal, Publs.: McGraw-Hill, 13
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 Avoid Task Deletion

 Create tasks at start-up only and avoid

creating and then deleting tasks later at the
later times.
 Deleting only advantage─ availability of
additional memory space

Chapter-8 L12: "Embedded Systems - Architecture,

2008 Programming and Design" , Raj Kamal, Publs.: McGraw-Hill, 14
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 Use CPU idle CPU time for internal
functions
 Read the internal queue.
 Manage the memory.
 Search for a free block of memory.

Chapter-8 L12: "Embedded Systems - Architecture,

2008 Programming and Design" , Raj Kamal, Publs.: McGraw-Hill, 15
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 Design with Memory Allocation and De-
De-
Allocation By the Task
 If memory allocation and de-allocation are done
by the task then the number of functions required
as the RTOS functions is reduced.
 This reduces the interrupt-latency periods. As
execution of these functions takes significant time
by the RTOS whenever the RTOS preempts a
task.
 Further, if fixed sized memory blocks are
allocated, then the predictability of time taken in
memory allocation is there
Chapter-8 L12: "Embedded Systems - Architecture,
2008 Programming and Design" , Raj Kamal, Publs.: McGraw-Hill, 16
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 Design with taking care of the Shared
Resource or Data among the Tasks
 The ISR coding should be as like a reentrant
function or should take care of problems
from the shared resources or data such as
buffer or global variables
 if possible, instead of disabling the
interrupts only the task-switching flag
changes should only be prevented. [It is by
using the semaphore.]

Chapter-8 L12: "Embedded Systems - Architecture,

2008 Programming and Design" , Raj Kamal, Publs.: McGraw-Hill, 17
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 Design with limited RTOS functions

 Use an RTOS, which can be configured.

RTOS provides during execution of the
codes enabling the limited RTOS functions.
For example, if queue and pipe functions
are not used during execution, then disable
these during run
 Scalable RTOS
 Hierarchical RTOS

Chapter-8 L12: "Embedded Systems - Architecture,

2008 Programming and Design" , Raj Kamal, Publs.: McGraw-Hill, 18
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 Use an RTOS, which provides for creation
of scalable code
 Only the needed functions include in the
executable files, and those functions of
kernel and RTOS not needed do not include
in the executable files

Chapter-8 L12: "Embedded Systems - Architecture,

2008 Programming and Design" , Raj Kamal, Publs.: McGraw-Hill, 19
Inc.
 Use an RTOS, which is hierarchical

 The needed functions extended and

interfaced with the functionalities
 Configured with specific processor and
devices

Chapter-8 L12: "Embedded Systems - Architecture,

2008 Programming and Design" , Raj Kamal, Publs.: McGraw-Hill, 20
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 Encapsulation Using the Semaphores

 Semaphores, queues, and messages should

not be not globally shared variables, and let
each should one be shared between a set of
tasks only and encapsulated from the rest
 A semaphore encapsulates the data during a
critical section or encapsulates a buffer
from reading task or writing into the buffer
by multiple tasks concurrently

Chapter-8 L12: "Embedded Systems - Architecture,

2008 Programming and Design" , Raj Kamal, Publs.: McGraw-Hill, 21
Inc.
 Encapsulation Using Queues
 A queue can be used to encapsulate the messages
to a task at an instance from the multiple tasks.
 Assume that a display task is posted a menu for
display on a touch screen in a PDA
 Multiple tasks can post the messages into the
queue for display.
 When one task is posting the messages and these
messages are displayed, another task should be
blocked from posting the messages.
 We can write a task, which takes the input
messages from other tasks and posts these
messages to the display task only after querying
whether the queue is empty
Chapter-8 L12: "Embedded Systems - Architecture,
2008 Programming and Design" , Raj Kamal, Publs.: McGraw-Hill, 22
Inc.
 Summary

Chapter-8 L12: "Embedded Systems - Architecture,

2008 Programming and Design" , Raj Kamal, Publs.: McGraw-Hill, 23
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We learnt
• There are certain design principles observed
when using the RTOS

Chapter-8 L12: "Embedded Systems - Architecture,

2008 Programming and Design" , Raj Kamal, Publs.: McGraw-Hill, 24
Inc.
 End of Lesson 12 of Chapter 8

Chapter-8 L12: "Embedded Systems - Architecture,

2008 Programming and Design" , Raj Kamal, Publs.: McGraw-Hill, 25
Inc.