3 ms·
The usual reason for using an RTOS on small embedded controllers is that a full OS is way too big to fit on such small CPUs (eg. 64K of RAM and 256K of FLASH is
by zik 9y ago
The usual reason for using an RTOS on small embedded controllers is that a full OS is way too big to fit on such small CPUs (eg. 64K of RAM and 256K of FLASH is common). FreeRTOS is tiny - it only uses a few KB of FLASH. Non real time OSes also don't provide the timing guarantees that are often required in those kinds of applications.
- ramzyo 9y agoValid point, but I’d have to disagree with you here. My experience as to why RTOS are chosen for small embedded micros is either a) some hard real time requirement is a must, eg motor control. You’re right that a non real time OS won’t provide that, but a blocking super loop baremetal application with round-robin task queueing may not either, depending on what’s in the queue b) the source of baremetal super-loop applications gets too jumbled as requirements grow and/or they require some multi-tasking mechanism for performance reasons. RTOS provide a multi-tasking mechanism.