Most Popular Open-source RTOS Comparison for Embedded Systems

Most embedded systems are “employed” to perform a task within a specified time. Such “employees” are called real-time systems. The employment chain continues as the real-time systems also “hire” real-time operating systems (RTOS) to meet the job deadlines. Choosing the right RTOS can be a confusing task since there are so many options to pick from. This article compares, from head to toe, the most popular Open-source RTOSes available so that you won’t have to. What is a Real-Time Operating System (RTOS)? A real-time OS is a particular type of operating system that manages an embedded system’s hardware to perform the user applications within the specified timing constraints. It differs from the generic OS as it is specifically designed for scheduling processes and managing the system’s limited resources to achieve fast real-time responses. “RTOS, thou art be a great manager.” In actual fact, any job that a user requests an embedded system to do consists of multiple individual smaller tasks, and execution is switched amongst them quickly enough to give an illusion that a single job is done. However, the CPU “brain” of an embedded system can only focus on one task at a time. How does it choose…