Hands-On RTOS with Microcontrollers

The range of RTOSes

RTOSes range in their functionality, as well as the architecture and size of the processor they're best suited to. On the smaller side, we have smaller 8–32-bit MCU-focused RTOSes, such as FreeRTOS, Keil RTX, Micrium µC, ThreadX, and many more.  This class of RTOS is suitable for use on microcontrollers and provides a compact real-time kernel as the most basic offering. When moving from MCUs to 32- and 64-bit application processors, you'll tend to find RTOSes such as Wind River VxWorks and Wind River Linux, Green Hills' Integrity OS, and even Linux with PREEMPT_RT kernel extensions. These full-blown OSes offer a large selection of software, providing solutions for both real-time scheduling requirements as well as general ...