Southeast University

Department of Textile Engineering

Course Title: Microprocessor Robotics & Control Engineering
Course Code: ME- 3027
Assignment on: Study on a Real time operating system.

Submitted To
Badruduja Bhuiya
Lecturer
Department of Textile Engineering
Southeast University

Submitted By
Md.Ashraful Hoque
ID:2012000400121
Batch:19th(3)

A real-time operating system or embedded operating system is a computer operating system

designed to handle events as they occur. Real-time operating systems are commonly found and
used in robotics, cameras, complex multimedia animation systems, communications, and has
various military and government uses. Embedded operating system are stored in a ROM chip
instead of a hard drive and contains only the absolute necessary files for the device it is running
on, and because it does not load executable files is only capable of running one application at a
time. Many operating systems such as Windows and Linux have embedded versions and other
examples included Chimera, Lynx, MTOS, QNX, RTMX, RTX, and VxWorks.
Real-time systems may be required in life critical applications such as patient monitoring
systems. They may also be applied in safety critical systems such as reactor control systems in a
power plant. Let us consider a safety critical application like anti-lock braking system (ABS),
where control settings have to be determined in real-time. A passenger car driver needs to be
able to control his automobile under adverse driving conditions. In a car without ABS, the driver
has to cleverly pump and release the brake pedal to prevent skids. Cars, with ABS control,
regulate pumping cycle of brakes automatically. This is achieved by modifying the pressure
applied on brake pedals by a driver in panic. A real-time control system gives a timely response.
In safety critical or life critical situations a delay may even result in a catastrophe.
Real time Operating Systems are very fast and quick respondent systems. These systems are used
in an environment where a large number of events (generally external) must be accepted and
processed in a short time. Real time processing requires quick transaction and characterized by
supplying immediate response. For example, a measurement from a petroleum refinery
indicating that temperature is getting too high and might demand for immediate attention to
avoid an explosion.
In real time operating system there is a little swapping of programs between primary and
secondary memory. Most of the time, processes remain in primary memory in order to provide
quick response, therefore, memory management in real time system is less demanding compared
to other systems.
The primary functions of the real time operating system are to:
Manage the processor and other system resources to meet the requirements of an
application.
Synchronize with and respond to the system events.
Move the data efficiently among processes and to perform coordination among these
processes.
To provide an efficient management of RAM.
To provide an exclusive access to the computer resources.

The Real Time systems are used in the environments where a large number of events (generally
external to the computer system) is required to be accepted and is to be processed in the form of
quick response. Such systems have to be the multitasking. So the primary function of the real
time operating system is to manage certain system resources, such as the CPU, memory, and
time. Each resource must be shared among the competing processes to accomplish the overall
function of the system Apart from these primary functions of the real time operating system there
are certain secondary functions that are not mandatory but are included to enhance the
performance.
Characteristics of real-time systems
A typical real-time operating environment is in this figure we note that the computer system has
an interface which is embedded within its environment. The operating system achieves the
desired extent of regulation as follows:
Sense an event: The system monitors its operative environment using some sensors.
These sensors keep a tab on some measurable entity. Depending upon the context of use
this entity may be a measure of temperature, or a stock price fluctuation or fluid level in a
reservoir. These measurements may be periodic. In that case the system would accept an
input periodically. In case the measurement of inputs is taken at specified times of
operation then the OS may schedule its input at these specified times or it may be
interrupted to accept the input. The input may even be measured only when an unusual
deviation in the value of the monitored entity occurs. In these cases the input would
certainly result in an interrupt. Regardless of the input mode, the system would have an
input followinga sensor reading (which is an event).
Process the data: The next important task is to process the data which has been most
recently acquired. The data processing may be aimed at checking the health of the
system. Usually it is to determine if some action is needed.
Decide on an action: Usually, the processing steps involving arriving at some decisions
on control settings. For instance, if the stock prices cross some threshold, then one has to
decide to buy or sell or do nothing. As another example, the action may be to open a
valve a little more to increase inflow in case reservoir level drops.
Take a corrective action: In case, the settings need to be altered, the new settings are
determined and control actuators are initiated. Note that the actions in turn affect the
environment. It is quite possible that as a consequence, a newest of events get triggered.
Also, it is possible that the corrective step requires a drastic and an immediate step. For
instance, if an alarm is to be raised, then all the other tasks have to be suspended or preempted and an alarm raised immediately. Real-time systems quite often resort to preemption to prevent a catastrophe from happening.

Types of Real Time Operating Systems:

System is nothing but group of peripherals connected to each other to process the input data and
give output. System which is time dependent that is to process the input data and give output in
given time, such systems are called real time systems. Real time system is divided into two
systems.
Hard Real Time Systems: Hard real-time systems guarantee that critical tasks complete
on time. In hard real-time systems secondary storage is limited or missing with data
stored in ROM. In these systems virtual memory is almost never found i.e. Avionic
Soft real-time systems: Soft real time systems are less restrictive. Critical real-time task
gets priority over other tasks and retains the priority until it completes. Soft real-time
systems have limited utility than hard real-time systems. For example, Multimedia,
virtual reality, Advanced Scientific Projects like undersea exploration and planetary
rovers etc.
Firm real-time systems: There is no value for a response that occurs past a specific
deadline. Failure to meet the timing requirements is undesirable. A single system may
have both hard and soft Real-time Sub-system. In reality many systems will have a cost
function associated with missing each deadline i.e. Banking

Advantages of Real Time Operating System: Maximum Consumption: - RTOS give maximum consumption of the system and gives
us more output while using all the resources and keeping all devices active. There is little
or no down time in these systems. So it can be also using by the servers that are hosted to
give maximum output of hosting companies.
Task Shifting: - There is very little time assigned to shifting tasks in these systems. For
example in older systems it takes about 10 micro seconds in shifting one task to another
and in latest systems it takes 3 micro seconds.
Focus on Application: - These type of operating system focus on applications which are
running and usually give less importance to other application residing in waiting stage of
life cycle. So less applications or tasks are managed and give exact result on current
execution work.
Real time operating system in embedded system: - Due to small size of programs
RTOS can also be used in embedded systems like in transport and others.
Error Free: - RTOS is error free that mean it has no chances of error in performing
tasks.
24-7 systems: RTOS can be best used for any applications which run 24 hours and 7
days because it do less task shifting and give maximum output.
Memory Allocation: - Memory allocation is best managed in these type of systems.

Disadvantages of Real Time Operating System:

Limited Tasks .
Use heavy system resources.
Low multi-tasking.
Complex Algorithms.
Device driver and interrupt signals.
Thread Priority.
Expensive.
Not easy to program.
Low Priority Tasks.
Precision of code.
Other factors: - There are lot of factors needed to consider like memory management,
CPU and error handling.
RTOS are generally complicated and can consume a non-trivial amount of processor
cycles.

Introduction of VxWorks
VxWorks is a real-time operating system (RTOS) developed as proprietary software by Wind
River of Alameda, California, US. First released in 1987, VxWorks is designed for use in
embedded systems requiring real-time, deterministic performance and, in many cases, safety and
security certification, for industries, such as aerospace and defense, medical devices, industrial
equipment, robotics, energy, transportation, network infrastructure, automotive, and consumer
electronics. It is a high performance, Unix like, scalable RTOS, and supports ARM, Pentium,
Intel X-Scale, Super H and other popular processors for embedded system design. VxWorks
design is hierarchical and well suited for hard real time applications. VxWorks is supported with
powerful development tools that make it easy and efficient to use. Many simulation tools, timeperformance analysis tools, debug and test tools are provided, making VxWorks as an RTOS that
supports development of almost any embedded application, providing a complete solution for all
stages of the design cycle. The latest version VxWorks 6.9 is the first commercial-grade RTOS
to fully support both 32-bit and 64-bit processing on Intel Architecture.

Basic Features/Advantage:
1. Multitasking environment using standard POSIX scheduler
2. Ability to run two concurrent Operating systems on a single processing layer
3. Multiple file systems and systems that enable advanced multimedia functionality
4. Synchronization using a full range of IPC options
5. Different context saving mechanisms for the tasks and ISRs
6. Virtual IO devices including pipes and sockets
7. Virtual memory management functions

8. Power management functions to enhance the ability to control power consumption

9. Interconnecting functions that support large number of protocols.
10. Pipe drivers for IPCs
11. Network transparent sockets
12. Networks drivers for shared memory and Ethernet
13. RAM disk drivers for memory-resident files
14. Processor abstraction layer to enable application system design by user when using new
versions of processor architecture.

Limitation of VxWorks

Maintain properly.
Need trained or special engineer.
High cost.
It is a complex term &Need to understand.
Not easy to program.

Applications :
VxWorks RTOS is widely used in the market, for a great variety of applications. Its reliability makes
it a popular choice for safety critical applications.
VxWorks has been successfully used in both military and civilian avionics, including the Apache
Attack Helicopter, Boeing 787, 747-8 and Airbus A400M. It is also used in on ground avionic
systems such as in both civilian and military Radar stations. Another safety critical application that
entrusts VxWorks is BMWs i-Drive system. However, VxWorks is also widely used in non-safetycritical applications where performance is at premium. The Xerox Phaser, a post-script printer is
controlled by a VxWorks powered platform. Link Sys wireless routers use VxWorks for operating
switches.
VxWorks has been used in several space applications. In Space crafts, where design challenges are
greatly increased by the need of extremely low power consumption and lack of access to regular
maintenance, VxWorks RTOS can be chosen as the operating system for On Board Computer
[OBC].
For example, Clementine launched in 1994 is running VxWorks 5.1 on a MIPS-based CPU
responsible for the Star Tracker and image processing algorithms. The Spirit and Opportunity
Mars Exploration Rovers were installed with VxWorks. VxWorks is also used as operating system in
several industrial robots and distributed control systems.

Conclusion:
The need to develop for real-time embedded applications is always a challenge, especially when
expensive hardware is at risk. The complex nature of such systems requires many special de-sign
considerations, an understanding of physical systems, and efficient management of limited resources. Perhaps one of the most difficult choices the embedded system designers have to make is
which operating system they are going to use. It is critical to have operating system that will be able
to be fail-safe, secure, scalable, fast and robust in multitask management, while being friendly to the
application developers. VxWorks is an RTOS which meets almost all of these requirements.

Bibliography:
www.windriver.com
Embedded Systems Architecture, Programming and Design by RajKamal
www.wikipedia.com
www.slideshare.com

www.scribd.com