Embedded System

Chapter 4
Real-time Operating systems

Destaw M

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 Outlines
Introduction
Context switching mechanisms
Scheduling policies
Message passing and shared memory communications
Inter-process communication

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 Introduction
An operating system is a program that
 Provides an “abstraction” of the physical
machine
 Provides a simple interface to the machine
An OS is also a resource manager
provides access to the physical resources of a
machine
provides abstract resources (for example, a file, a
virtual page in memory, etc.)

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 Introduction
OS tasks
1. Process Management
 Process creation
 Process loading
 Process execution control
 Interaction of the process with signal events
 Process monitoring
 CPU allocation
 Process termination

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 Introduction

2. Inter-process Communication
 Synchronization and coordination
 Deadlock detection
 Process Protection
 Data Exchange Mechanisms
3. Memory Management
 Services for file creation, deletion, reposition and
protection
4. Input / Output Management
 Handles requests and release subroutines for a
variety of peripherals and
 read, write and reposition programs

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 Introduction
What is real time operating system (RTOS)?
From its name RTOS has two components:
Real-time
Operating system
First of all It is an Operating system which is:
Suitable for embedded system application
Constrained by timing (deadline) requirements

A program that
schedules execution in a timely manner,
Manages system resources, and
Provides a consistent foundation for developing real
time embedded system application.
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 Cont.…….
Are those systems in which the correctness of
the system depends on the logical result of
computation and also on the time at which the
results are produced
Are time bounded system
if the timing constraints of the system are not
met system failure is said to have occurred

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 Introduction
Classifications of RTOS
1. Hard Real Time System
Failure to meet deadlines is fatal
example : Flight Control System
2. Soft Real Time System
Late completion of jobs is undesirable but not fatal
System performance degrades as more & more jobs miss
deadlines
Example : Online Databases

Q. How these OS then achieve the requirements?

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 RTOS Architecture
usually it is just a kernel
but for complex system it includes modules like
networking protocol
stacks debugging facilities,
device I/Os.

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 RTOS Architecture
kernel acts as an abstraction layer between the hardware
and the applications
It is an instruction which runs all the time in a computer
program.
The Kernel provides
an interrupt handler
task scheduler
resource sharing flags and
memory management.

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 Cont.…..

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 Context switching mechanisms
A context switch 
 process switch or a task switch
switching of the CPU from one process/task to another
is an essential feature of multitasking operating systems
How multitasking is working with single CPU?
A multitasking operating system
CPU seemingly simultaneously execute multiple tasks
it is an illusion of concurrency 
It is achieved by means of context switching

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 Context switching
Task
Decomposed application into small, schedulable, and
sequential program units
governed by three time-critical properties;
 Release time refers to the point in time from which the task can
be executed.
 Deadline is the point in time by which the task must complete.
 Execution time denotes the time the task takes to execute.

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 Context switching
Each task may exist in following states

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 Context switching
Dormant : Task doesn’t require CPU time
Ready:  Task is ready to go active state, waiting
processor time
Active: Task is running
Suspended: Task put on hold temporarily
Pending: Task waiting for resource.

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 Context switching
What happened during switching ?
context of the to-be-suspended task will be saved
context of the to-be-executed task will be retrieved
Task Control block(TCB):
Task uses TCBs to remember its context.
accessible only by RTOS
Information on TCB could be
Task_ID
Task_State
Task_Priority
Task_Stack_Pointer
Task_Prog _Counter

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 Scheduling policies
keeping record of the state of each task and allocates
the CPU to one of them
More information about the tasks are required
Number of tasks
Resource Requirements
Execution time
Deadlines
Scheduling algorithms
Clock Driven Scheduling
Weighted Round Robin Scheduling
Priority Scheduling

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 Scheduling Algorithms
Clock Driven
All parameters about jobs (execution time/deadline)
known in advance
Schedule can be computed at some regular time
instances
Minimal runtime overhead
Not suitable for many applications

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 Scheduling Algorithms
Weighted Round Robin
Jobs scheduled in FIFO manner
Time quantum given to jobs is proportional to it’s weight
Example use : High speed switching network
Not suitable for precedence constrained jobs.
 Job A can run only after Job B.

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 Scheduling Algorithms
Priority Scheduling
Processor never left idle when there are ready tasks
Processor allocated to processes according to priorities
Priorities
 Static - at design time
 Dynamic - at runtime

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 Priority Scheduling
Earliest Deadline First (EDF)
Process with earliest deadline given highest priority
Least Slack Time First (LSF)
slack = relative deadline – execution left
Rate Monotonic Scheduling (RMS)
Tasks priority inversely proportional to it’s period
For periodic tasks

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 Schedulers(Dispatchers)
are parts of the kernel responsible for determining
which task runs next
Most real-time kernels use priority-based scheduling
Each task is assigned a priority based on its importance
The priority is application-specific
Priority-Based Kernels
Non-preemptive
Preemptive

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 Non-Preemptive Kernels
Perform “cooperative multitasking”
Each task must explicitly give up control of the CPU
This must be done frequently to maintain the illusion of
concurrency
Asynchronous events are still handled by ISRs
ISRs can make a higher-priority task ready to run
But ISRs always return to the interrupted tasks

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 Non-Preemptive Kernels
Advantages
Interrupt latency is typically low
Task-response is now given by the time of the longest
task
Less need to guard shared data
Disadvantage
Responsiveness
A higher priority task might have to wait for a long
time
Response time is nondeterministic

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 Preemptive Kernels
The highest-priority task ready to run is always given
control of the CPU
If an ISR makes a higher-priority task ready, the higher-
priority task is resumed (instead of the interrupted task)
Execution of the highest-priority task is deterministic
Task-level response time is minimized

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 Message passing and shared memory communications
Message Passing
is a form of communication used in inter process communication.
Communication is made by the sending of messages to recipients.
Each process should be able to name the other processes.
The producer typically uses send() system call to send messages,
 and the consumer uses receive() system call to receive messages.
synchronous or asynchronous,
could either be between processes running on a single machine,
or could be done over the networked machine

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 Message passing and shared memory communications
Message Queue
kernels provide an object called a message queue
used to place task send or received messages
a buffer-like object through which tasks and ISRs send and receive
messages to communicate and synchronize with each others
Message queues have
an associated message queue control block (QCB),
a name,
a unique ID,
memory buffers,
a message queue length,
a maximum message length,

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 Message passing and shared memory communications
Shared Memory communication
Is an OS provided abstraction
allows a memory region to be simultaneously accessed by
multiple programs
One process will create an area in RAM which other
processes can access
Since both processes can access the shared memory area
like regular working memory, this is a very fast way of
communication
it is less powerful, as for example the communicating
processes must be running on the same machine

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 Inter process communication
 Tasks usually need to communicate and synchronize with
each other for different reasons such as:
Accessing a shared resource
To signal the occurrence of events to each other
RTOS provides inbuilt inter-task primitives , which
are kernel objects that facilitate these synchronization and
communication
Examples of such objects include
Semaphores
Message queues
Signal, pipes and so on

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 Semaphores
A semaphore is a kernel object that one or more tasks can
acquire or release for :
Mutual exclusion
Signaling the occurrence of an event
Synchronizing activities among tasks
semaphores have
An associated semaphore control block (SCB),
A unique ID,
 A user-assigned value (binary or a count), and
 A task-waiting list.

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 Semaphores (cont.)
There are two types
Binary semaphores
 0 or 1
 If value =0 => semaphore is not available
 If value = 1 => semaphore available
Counting semaphores
 >= 0
 uses a count to allow it to be acquired or released multiple times

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 Semaphore Operations
 Initialize (or create)
 Value must be provided
 Waiting list is initially empty
 Wait (or pend)
 Used for acquiring the semaphore
 If the semaphore is available (the semaphore value is positive), the
value is decremented, and the task is not blocked
 Otherwise, the task is blocked and placed in the waiting list
 Most kernels allow you to specify a timeout
 If the timeout occurs, the task will be unblocked and an error code
will be returned to the task

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 Semaphore Operations (cont.)
Signal (or post)
Used for releasing the semaphore
If no task is waiting, the semaphore value is incremented
Otherwise, make one of the waiting tasks ready to run
but the value is not incremented
Which waiting task to receive the key?
 Highest-priority waiting task
 First waiting task

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 Sharing I/O Devices

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 Sharing I/O Device (cont.)
In the example, each task must know about the
semaphore in order to access the device
A better solution:
Encapsulate the semaphore

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 Encapsulating a Semaphore

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 Applications of Counting Semaphores
A counting semaphore is used when a resource can be
used by more than one task at the same time
Example:
Managing a buffer pool of 10 buffers

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 RTOS need to provide
Multitasking Capabilities:
A RT application is divided into multiple tasks.
The separation into tasks helps to keep the CPU busy.
 Short Interrupt Latency :
Interrupt Latency = Hardware delay to get interrupt
signal to the processor + time to complete the current
instruction + time executing system code in
preparation for transferring execution to the devices
interrupt handler.

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 RTOS need to provide
Fast Context Switch :
The time between the OS recognizing that the awaited
event has arrived and the beginning of the waiting task is
called context switch time(dispatch latency).
This switching time should be minimum
 Control Of Memory Management :
an OS should provide way for task to lock its code and data
into real memory so that it can guarantee predictable response
to a interrupt.

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 RTOS need to provide
 Proper scheduling :
OS must provide facility to schedule properly time
constrained tasks.
 Fine granularity Timer Services :
Millisecond resolution is bare minimum .
Microseconds resolution is required in some cases.
 Rich set of Inter Task Communication Mechanism :
Message queues,
shared memory ,
Synchronization –Semaphores, event flags

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 Example of embedded system application
using RTOS
TCP/IP NETWORK streaming USING RTOS
VxWorks
AUTOMATIC CHOCOLATE VENDING MACHINE
(AVCM) USING µC/OS-II RTOS
DIGITAL CAMERA
AN ADAPTIVE CRUISE CONTROL (ACC)
SYSTEM IN A CAR
SMART CARD for security
For robotics
MOBILE PHONE hardware and software

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 What to look for in a good RTOS
Determinism – does the RTOS have published numbers on the minimum,
average and maximum cycles its functions require?
Documented and minimum Interrupt latency
Minimum context switch time
Available plug-ins – USB Host, USB Device, TCP/IP, Bluetooth, SSH,
SSL, etc.
Compatibility of RTOS with your chosen tool chain (processor,
programming language and so on)
Overall cot of RTOS –
initial cost,
procuring source code of RTOS,
support costs,
royalties,
maintenance costs

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 THANK
YOU!!!

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 Quiz 5 M
What to look for in a good RTOS?(2 M)
What are the two types of RTOS?(1 M)
What are the functions of kernel?(2 M)

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