OS for embedded systems: state of the art and prospects

✍ Scribed by V. Olive; S. Martin; A. Vareille

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 2000
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 775 KB
• Volume: 54
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0167-9317
• DOI: 10.1016/s0167-9317(00)80063-5

✦ Synopsis

Operating Systems (OS) for embedded systems is a very diversified world which covers a huge variety of products: fax, printer, washing machine system, personal digital assistant (PDA), navigation system, telecom satellite, etc. There are many actors to provide the needs as it is shown by a market study done in 1999. In a first section, we will present the most famous OS of the embedded world, and try to guess which will be leaders in 3 or 5 years. In a second part, technical aspects will be presented. Real-time is often associated with embedded system, but this must be completed with other aspects: size, modularity, price, and more important reliability, availability, quality of the design. Such systems are often isolated, invisible for the user. This implies specific characteristics that are not present in generalist OS. In a third part, we emphasize on the difficulties for choosing an embedded OS. A study has been done to explain how people finally try to make a decision. Commercial aspects are shown to be as important as technical aspects.