Book Image

Hands-On RTOS with Microcontrollers

By : Brian Amos
Book Image

Hands-On RTOS with Microcontrollers

By: Brian Amos

Overview of this book

A real-time operating system (RTOS) is used to develop systems that respond to events within strict timelines. Real-time embedded systems have applications in various industries, from automotive and aerospace through to laboratory test equipment and consumer electronics. These systems provide consistent and reliable timing and are designed to run without intervention for years. This microcontrollers book starts by introducing you to the concept of RTOS and compares some other alternative methods for achieving real-time performance. Once you've understood the fundamentals, such as tasks, queues, mutexes, and semaphores, you'll learn what to look for when selecting a microcontroller and development environment. By working through examples that use an STM32F7 Nucleo board, the STM32CubeIDE, and SEGGER debug tools, including SEGGER J-Link, Ozone, and SystemView, you'll gain an understanding of preemptive scheduling policies and task communication. The book will then help you develop highly efficient low-level drivers and analyze their real-time performance and CPU utilization. Finally, you'll cover tips for troubleshooting and be able to take your new-found skills to the next level. By the end of this book, you'll have built on your embedded system skills and will be able to create real-time systems using microcontrollers and FreeRTOS.
Table of Contents (24 chapters)
1
Section 1: Introduction and RTOS Concepts
5
Section 2: Toolchain Setup
9
Section 3: RTOS Application Examples
13
Section 4: Advanced RTOS Techniques

Who this book is for

RTOS programming is not a beginner's topic and is definitely not the right starting point for learning about embedded systems. If MCUs or the C language is totally new to you, then you're better off starting by covering the basics and getting some hands-on experience before diving into this more advanced topic.

So, who stands to benefit the most from working through this book?

Professional programmers: You've always programmed on bare metal (no OS) and are looking to increase your MCU programming skills by learning how to use an RTOS to meet tight timing requirements, balance concurrent operations, and create modular code.

Students interested in "getting their hands dirty": You've been covering theory, listening to lectures, and coding lab exercises, but now you're looking for a complete guide that helps you to get started with something you can physically touch and interact with.

Makers moving onto more advanced topics: You've written some sketches or scripts, but you're looking for your next challenge. Maybe you'd like to create a full MCU-based system from scratch – the information here will help get you on track for the programming side. You'll even get some tips on what to look for when selecting an MCU for your project.