A real-time operating system (RTOS) is an operating system that runs multi-threaded applications and can meet real-time deadlines. See this article to read more about them: https://www.digikey.com/en/maker/vide...


An RTOS is often a lightweight operating system (OS) designed to run on microcontrollers. Much like general purpose operating systems, they offer a scheduler to run multiple threads or tasks, resource management (such as file I/O), and device drivers. An RTOS is necessary when embedded engineers need to run several threads at the same time on a processor.

The “real-time” part of an RTOS means that such software can meet real-time deadlines. Note that this does not mean “fast,” but rather, it can guarantee that task execution time can be calculated prior to runtime.

Embedded programmers often use a “bare-metal” or “super loop” structure instead of an RTOS when concurrency is not needed. This is the familiar “setup” and “loop forever” style of embedded code where no OS is employed. Many embedded applications can be written in this format, and they are often easier to debug.

In the rest of the series, we will cover various RTOS concepts and provide demonstrations on the ESP32 using Arduino. After each video, excluding this one, we will issue a challenge and the solution can be found in a Maker.IO link provided in the video’s description. We encourage you to try the challenge without looking at the solution.

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Related Videos:
Introduction to RTOS Part 1 - What is a Real-Time Operating System (RTOS)? -    • Introduction to RTOS Part 1 - What is...  ​

Introduction to RTOS Part 2 - Getting Started with FreeRTOS -    • Introduction to RTOS Part 2 - Getting...  ​

Introduction to RTOS Part 3 - Task Scheduling -    • Introduction to RTOS Part 3 - Task Sc...  ​

Introduction to RTOS Part 4 - Memory Management -    • Introduction to RTOS Part 4 - Memory ...  ​

Introduction to RTOS Part 5 - Queue -    • Introduction to RTOS Part 5 - Queue |...  ​

Introduction to RTOS Part 6 - Mutex -    • Introduction to RTOS Part 6 - Mutex |...  ​

Introduction to RTOS Part 7 -    • Introduction to RTOS Part 7 - Semapho...  ​

Introduction to RTOS Part 8 -    • Introduction to RTOS Part 8 - Softwar...  

Introduction to RTOS Part 9 -    • Introduction to RTOS Part 9 - Hardwar...  

Introduction to RTOS Part 10 -    • Introduction to RTOS Part 10 - Deadlo...  

Introduction to RTOS Part 11 -    • Introduction to RTOS Part 11 - Priori...  

Introduction to RTOS Part 12 -    • Introduction to RTOS Part 12 - Multic...  

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