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

Creating a command queue

There are two parts to the example-program: an app that runs on the development computer, and firmware that runs on the dev-board. The app is shown in Figure 13.1. The app sends commands over USB to the firmware. Each command specifies how the dev-board’s user-LEDs are to be displayed (green, red, and blue). For each LED, its brightness is specified. On the slider-bars, 0% is off, 100% is fully on, and partial brightness is in-between (e.g., 50% is half brightness). The slider-bars’ index is shown, and it ranges from 0 to 255. The commands sent by the app also specify whether the LEDs should shine continuously or blink.

Figure 13.1: The app that sends LED commands to the dev-board

While the example-program itself is very simple, the concepts presented scale extremely well. So, regardless of whether there are only a few commands or hundreds, the same approach can be used to keep an architecture flexible.

The example-program also...