Module 10:

RTOS & EOS

Muhammad Mun’im bin Ahmad Zabidi

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The Operating System
 An Operating System is a program that:
› Provides an “abstraction” of the physical machine through a simple
interface;
› Each part of the interface is a “service”
 An OS is also a resource manager;
› With the term “resource” we denote all physical entities of a computing
machine : the processor, memory, and I/O devices.
› The OS provides access to the physical resources;
› The OS provides abstract resources (for example, a file, a virtual page
in memory, a thread, an alarm).

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Why do we Need an Operating System?
 OS is an abstraction from hardware and software programming
› Shorter development time
› Less porting efforts
› Better reusability
 OS as a resource manager
› Optimize the use of all computational resources
 Keep resources busy
 Minimize idle time
 Avoid resource conflicts / deadlocks
› Satisfy the specific requirements for applications
 Minimize response time
 Choosing a OS is important
› High efforts when porting to a different OS
› The chosen OS may have a high impact on the amount of resources
needed

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Characteristics of Embedded OS
 Real-time operation
› correctness of computation depends, in part, on the time at which
result is delivered
 Reactive operation
› needs to consider worst-case conditions in execution in order to
respond to external events that do not occur at predictable intervals
 Configurability
› supports flexible configuration so that only the functionality needed for
a specific application and hardware suite is provided
› e.g., allows to select only the necessary OS modules to load
 I/O device flexibility
› handles devices by using special tasks instead of integrating their
drives into the OS kernel

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What is an Embedded OS?
 Generally contain a smaller subset of functionality than a desktop OS
› Less services provided
› Less memory required
› Boots from ROM.
› No keyboard or mouse required.
› Special software developed to control embedded peripherals. (flash disks, touch
screens, tiny displays)
 An embedded system may or may not be a real-time system.
 What makes a good Embedded OS?
› Modular
› Scalable
› Configurable
› Small footprint
› CPU support
› Device drivers
› etc, etc, etc...

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Characteristics of Embedded OS
 Streamlined protection mechanisms
› requires limited protection because tested software can be assumed
to be reliable
› e.g., I/O instructions need not be privileged instructions that trap to OS
 tasks can directly perform their own I/O
› no use of an OS service call  avoid overhead for saving and
restoring the task context
 Direct use of interrupts
› permits user process to use interrupts directly
› no need to go through OS interrupt service routines
› have efficient control over a variety of devices

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Characteristics of Embedded OS
 Using a general-purpose OS for an embedded system may
not be possible
› constraint of memory space
› constraint of power consumption
› real-time requirements
 Special-purpose OS designed for the embedded system
environment is commonly used.

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Developing an Embedded OS
 Two general approaches
› Take an existing OS and adapt it for embedded purposes
› Design a purpose-built OS solely for embedded use

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Adapting an Existing OS
 Examples include Windows, Linux
›  familiar interfaces facilitate portability
›  slower and less predictable than special purpose embedded OS
›  not optimized for real-time and embedded applications  require
considerable modification to achieve adequate performance
 optimizes for the average case rather than the worst case for scheduling
 assigns resources on demand
 ignores semantic information about an application
 Need to add
› real-time capability
› streamlining operation
› other specialized and necessary functionality for the given device

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Purpose-Built Embedded OS
 Most OS are designed from the ground up for embedded
applications
 Typical characteristics include:
› Has thread switch (fast and lightweight)
› Real time scheduling policy
› Small size
› Responds to external interrupts quickly (<10 s)
› Minimizes intervals during which interrupts are disabled
 Typical characteristics include:
› Provides fixed or variable sized partitions for memory management
and the ability to lock code and data in memory
› Provides special sequential files that can accumulate data at a fast
rate

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Purpose-Built Embedded OS
 To deal with timing constraints, the kernel:
› provides bounded execution time for primitives
› maintains a real-time clock
› provides for special alarms and timeouts
› supports real-time queuing disciplines, e.g., EDF (earliest deadline
first)
› provides primitives to delay processing and to suspend/resume
execution

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rtos
 Enables execution of concurrent processes or threads or
tasks
 Provides a mechanism to let the processor run each process
as per scheduling and to do context-switch between the
various processes (threads or tasks)
 Sets the rules during execution of application processes to
enable finishing of a process within the assigned time interval
and with assigned priority.

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Real time operations
 Defines the ways in which the system works, reacts to the
events and interrupts, schedules the system functioning in
real time and executes by following a plan to control the
latencies and to meet the deadlines.
 [Latency — Waiting interval between the instance at which a
need to run the codes arises for task (or interrupt service
routine) following an event and instance of start executing
the codes]

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 Embedded OS Trends

DOS is not
RTOS!
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What is a Real-Time System?
 “A real time system is one in which the correctness of the
computations not only depends upon the logical correctness
of the computation but also upon the time at which the result
is produced. If the timing constraints of the system are not
met, system failure is said to have occurred.”
- Donald Gillies

 “Real time in operating systems:

 “Real-time does not mean speed, but keeping deadlines”

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Classification of Real-Time Systems
 Hard real-time system
› Missing a deadline has catastrophic results for the system
› Nuclear Power Plant Controller
 Soft real-time system
› Deadlines may be missed and can be recovered
› The reduction in system quality is acceptable
› Multimedia Streaming

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What Do We Mean by “Preemptive”?
 There are two different execution models:
› In a preemptive model of execution a task may be interrupted
(preempted) during its execution and another task run in its place.
› In a non-preemptive model of execution after a task that starts
executing no other task may execute until this task concludes or yields
the CPU.
 A preemptive model is necessary for an RTOS to achieve its
deadline

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Multi-rate operations
 Different operations may take place at distinct rates. For
example, the audio, video, network data or stream and
events have the different rates and time constraints to finish
associated processes.

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Pure Real Time OS
 Especially designed for real-time requirements
 Completely real-time compliant
 Often usable for simple architecture
 Advantage: no or little overhead
› Computing power, memory
 Disadvantage: limited functionality
 Example: eCos, Nucleus, pSOS, VxWorks, QNX, OSE, Lyra

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OS Real-Time Extensions
 Extension of an OS by real-time components
 Cooperation between RT- and non-RT parts
 Advantages: rich functionality
 Disadvantage:
› No general real-time ability
› Computing and memory resources
 Example: RT-Linux, Solaris, Windows NT

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Type of RTOS kernel
 Monolithic kernel  Microkernel
› Tightly integrated services, › High run-time overhead but
highly extensible
less run-time overhead
› Only contains essential kernel
› Not extensible - Any functions i.e., limited resource
modification requires management, low-level VM
recompilation of the kernel allocation, CPU scheduling.
› Other functions are in system
libraries / modules.

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Components of a RTOS
 Process(task) management
› Scheduler
› Synchronization mechanism
 Interprocess communication (IPC)
 Semaphores
 Memory management
 Interrupt service mechanism
 I/O management
 Hardware abstraction layer
 Development Environments
 Communication subsystems (Option)
 Board Support Packages

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