Embedded operating systems

As illustrated in the previous sections of this chapter, building a scheduler tailored to a custom solution from scratch is not impossible and, if done properly, would provide the closest approximation of the desired architecture and focus on the specific characteristics offered by the target hardware. In a real-life scenario, however, it is advisable to consider one of the many embedded operating systems options available and ready to be integrated into the architecture among those supporting the selected hardware platform, and providing the features that we have learned about in this chapter.

Many of the available kernel implementations for microcontrollers are open source and in a healthy development state, so they are deserving of their well-established role in the embedded market. A few of them are sufficiently popular and widely tested to provide a foundation for building reliable embedded multitasking applications.

OS selection

Selecting the...