You're reading from Hands-On RTOS with Microcontrollers Create high-performance, real-time embedded systems using FreeRTOS, STM32 MCUs, and SEGGER debug tools

Product type Paperback

Published in Sep 2025

Publisher Packt

ISBN-13 9781803237725

Length 570 pages

Edition 2nd Edition

Languages

Concepts

Operating Systems

Authors (2):

Jim Yuill

Penn Linder

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Table of Contents (27) Chapters

Preface

1. Part 1: Introduction to RTOSes, the Dev-Board, and Tools

2. Introducing Real-Time Systems FREE CHAPTER

3. Introducing the Development Board

4. Introducing the Development-Tools

5. Understanding Super-Loops

6. Implementing the Super-Loop

7. Part 2: The FreeRTOS Scheduler, Tasks, and Primary APIs

8. Understanding RTOS Tasks

9. Running the FreeRTOS Scheduler

10. Protecting Data and Synchronizing Tasks

11. Intertask Communication

12. Part 3: Using FreeRTOS to Build Systems

13. Drivers and ISRs

14. More Efficient Drivers and ISRs

15. Sharing Hardware Peripherals among Tasks

16. Creating Loose Coupling with Queues

17. Part 4: System Design and Troubleshooting

18. FreeRTOS Memory Management

19. Multi-Processor and Multi-Core Systems

20. Troubleshooting Tips and Next Steps

21. Part 5: Reference Information and FreeRTOS Installation

22. Other Books You May Enjoy

23. Index

Appendix A: Tools Quick-Reference

1. Appendix B: Reference Information

2. Appendix C: Creating FreeRTOS Projects, and Installing FreeRTOS

Protecting Data and Synchronizing Tasks

What do race conditions, corrupt data, and missed real-time deadlines all have in common? Well, for one, they are all mistakes that can be easily made when operations are performed in parallel. These are also mistakes that are avoidable (in part) through using the right techniques.

This chapter covers many of the RTOS primitives that are used to synchronize tasks and protect shared data. The explanations in this chapter contain example-code, and analysis performed using Ozone and SystemView.

First, we will explore the differences between semaphores and mutexes. Next, you will understand how, when, and why to use a semaphore. You’ll also learn about race conditions and see how a mutex can avoid such situations. Example code will be provided throughout. The concept of race conditions will be introduced and fixed using a mutex in live code that can be run and analyzed on the Nucleo development board. Finally, FreeRTOS software timers...