Hands-On RTOS with Microcontrollers: Building real-time embedded systems using FreeRTOS, STM32 MCUs, and SEGGER debug tools

Book Description
A real-time operating system (RTOS) is used to develop systems that respond to events within strict timelines. Real-time embedded systems have applications in various industries, from automotive and aerospace through to laboratory test equipment and consumer electronics. These systems provide consistent and reliable timing and are designed to run without intervention for years.

This microcontrollers book starts by introducing you to the concept of RTOS and compares some other alternative methods for achieving real-time performance. Once you’ve understood the fundamentals, such as tasks, queues, mutexes, and semaphores, you’ll learn what to look for when selecting a microcontroller and development environment. By working through examples that use an STM32F7 Nucleo board, the STM32CubeIDE, and SEGGER debug tools, including SEGGER J-Link, Ozone, and SystemView, you’ll gain an understanding of preemptive scheduling policies and task communication. The book will then help you develop highly efficient low-level drivers and analyze their real-time performance and CPU utilization. Finally, you’ll cover tips for troubleshooting and be able to take your new-found skills to the next level.

By the end of this book, you’ll have built on your embedded system skills and will be able to create real-time systems using microcontrollers and FreeRTOS.

What you will learn
Understand when to use an RTOS for a project
Explore RTOS concepts such as tasks, mutexes, semaphores, and queues
Discover different microcontroller units (MCUs) and choose the best one for your project
Evaluate and select the best IDE and middleware stack for your project
Use professional-grade tools for analyzing and debugging your application
Get FreeRTOS-based applications up and running on an STM32 board
Who this book is for
This book is for embedded engineers, students, or anyone interested in learning the complete RTOS feature set with embedded devices. A basic understanding of the C programming language and embedded systems or microcontrollers will be helpful.

Table of Contents
Introducing Real-Time Systems
Understanding RTOS Tasks
Task Signaling and Communication Mechanisms
Selecting the Right MCU
Selecting an IDE
Debugging Tools for Real-Time Systems
The FreeRTOS Scheduler
Protecting Data and Synchronizing Tasks
Intertask Communication
Drivers and ISRs
Sharing Hardware Peripherals across Tasks
Tips for Creating a Well-Abstracted Architecture
Creating Loose Coupling with Queues
Choosing an RTOS API
FreeRTOS Memory Management
Multi-Processor and Multi-Core Systems
Troubleshooting Tips and Next Steps